This is the thirty-eighth issue and tenth year of Genetic Clinics! A relook at the old issues gives a brief history of an
exciting decade in the era of medical genetics. Genetic Clinics has been presenting the latest and most fascinating
developments in the field of genetics to its readers. An attempt is made to simplify the complex subject of genetics in an
easy-to-read manner, so that clinicians, scientists and students can update themselves, and learn about and improve the
patient care facilities related to medical genetics in India. Genetic Clinics not only reflects important milestones in the
timeline of medical genetics in the international scenario but is also witness to and documents the developments in India.
It has been satisfying that the developments in medical genetics facilities for patient care in India have speeded up and
have become up-to date with the international level of care in medical genetics. State-of-the-art diagnostics for
common as well as rare genetic disorders have become available in India and affordable for most of the people.
There is a beginning of government-supported treatment facilities for patients with genetic disorders and
policymakers are giving priority to organize nationwide facilities for prevention and treatment of genetic
disorders.
This issue has a review of DNA repair mechanisms and diseases caused by defects in the DNA repair machinery. The
issue also has GeNeXprESS which covers interesting articles about the use of CRISPR/Cas9 for gene repair as a
therapeutic strategy. CRISPR / Cas9 driven gene correction strategies are showing great promise. At this juncture, the
2nd Annual Cell and Gene Therapy Symposium at CSCR, Vellore was a treat for researchers. The participants got an
opportunity to get to know the current status of progress in gene therapy for beta thalassemia which has been long
awaited. Also, the work on stem cells and other gene therapy trials along with intricacies of various vectors used were
presented by international and Indian scientists. Next generation sequencing has opened up enormous diagnostic and
preventive opportunities and stem cell and gene therapy based treatment options are appearing brighter and closer on the
horizon.
As the progress on various fronts of medical genetics hastens, Genetic Clinics will continue to bring these
wonderful scientific advancements to your reading table in a simplified and crisp form in the future! I hope this
will benefit the scientists, clinicians and the patients / patient families for whom we work and to whose
betterment we are committed. I am thankful to all the contributors and my colleagues at SIAMG and
Genzyme, India for the continued, timely, and quality publication of Genetic Clinics for the last ten years.
Hope more like-minded people join the journey of Genetic Clinics into the fascinating world of molecular
medicine!
