BEIJING, May 18 (Xinhua) — A group of international researchers has constructed a comprehensive Southeast Asian population genome variation dataset, according to the Kunming Institute of Zoology (KIZ) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA) has rich ethnic and cultural diversity with a population of nearly 300 million. However, people from MSEA are underrepresented in the current human genomic databases.
The researchers from countries including China, Thailand and Cambodia spent more than 10 years venturing deep into the rainforests of Southeast Asian countries and collecting samples from Southeast Asian populations covering five major language…