The King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) announced on Tuesday that the Saudi Human Genome Project has managed to document 7,500 mutations that cause genetic diseases in the Kingdom.
They include 3,000 genetic mutations that cause over 1,230 rare disorders in Saudi Arabia.
The research was carried out at the KACST Central Laboratory for Human Genome that was inaugurated in 2018 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, in his capacity as the Chairman of the KACST board of directors.
The Saudi Human Genome Project is the one of the national transformation projects of Saudi Vision 2030. The project was launched in KACST in Riyadh and aims to discover mutations that cause rare genetic diseases with a focus on those mutations in the Saudi society.