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Chinese scientists have ended a four-year-long effort to set up the biggest gene bank of over 8,000 DNA samples of the nation's 54 ethnic minorities, the state media reported today. The Chinese government aided move was vital to preserve the human genetic diversity as many nationalities throughout the world had interbred and disappeared, Professor Xiao Chunjie of southwest China's Yunnan University, which organised the project, said. "Anthropologists and geneticists have shared the hope of building a gene bank since 1980, when the falling ethnic populations began to attract attention," Xiao said. Home to 25 of the nation's 55 ethnic minorities, with its remote mountains keeping its ethnic minorities isolated, southwest China's Yunnan Province was designated home of the gene bank, he said. However, the scientists did not get the gene from the Gaoshan ethnic minority in Taiwan, a self-ruled island over which Beijing claims sovereignty. "The gene bank is indispensable to China and even the world," he was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency. China boasts one of the world's most diverse genetic pools. Xiao said the bank would help to prevent and cure regional genetic diseases. Scientists had identified the genes that cause diseases like hypertension after studying the samples. More than 6,600 diseases are known to be caused by single gene disorder and many fatal and chronic diseases, including coronary heart disease, diabetes, cancer and immune deficiency diseases, are caused by multiple gene disorders.
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