THE 27th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit concluded on a high note. The members had productive and extensive deliberations to consolidate Asean as a politically cohesive, economically integrated and socially responsible community for the wellbeing of their peoples.
The establishment of the Asean Community is a culmination of a five-decade long effort of community building since the signing of the Bangkok Declaration in 1967.
The people of Southeast Asia practise a variety of customs and traditions, and are of diverse cultures and religions. But, despite the differences among them, they share the same basic genetic profile.
Results from several population genomic studies on major populations in the region have shown that they share similar ancestral
components although the proportion of these components substantially differed in each population.
Using statistical analysis and intensive computational estimation, researchers were able to identify the similarities of the genome regardless of our difference in historical and demographical events.
Various researches, including one in which Malaysian researchers were also involved, show that Southeast Asia has the largest record of human migration outside Africa.
The findings, from a population genomic study titled Mapping
Human Gentic Diversity in Asia
by The Hugo Pan-Asian-SNP Consortium (published in Science Journal, 2009), demonstrated that Southeast Asia was an entry point of human migration into Asia via a single southern route.
The first wave of humans came from Africa through India into Southeast Asia, and then migrated to what are now islands in the Pacific, later extended to the eastern and northern
Asian mainland. The migration wave was illustrated by the genetic similarities found between populations throughout Asia and an increase in genetic diversity from northern to southern latitudes.
During the pre-colonial and colonisation era, the Southeast Asian region served as a melting point of peoples from all over Asia, depicting the archipelago as one of the crossroads of world civilisations.
Other findings suggested that humans had been occupying the islands in Southeast Asia as early as 50,000 years ago, a period longer than what was previously believed to be 10,000 years ago from Taiwan.
All these show Southeast Asia as a very important region in the modern human dispersal.
Therefore, the call for integration of peoples from Southeast Asia through the Asean Community is timely and will promote regional peace and security as well as enhance Asean’s role as a global player.
The genetic similarities shared by the peoples in this region will unite them to form a truly people-oriented Asean Community comprising
not just areas of political and security cooperation, economic growth and socio-cultural development, but also in science and healthcare.
The similarities in the Asean human genome have implications in disease and health, as well as in personalised medicine where management and treatment of diseases are guided by genomic profiles. Therefore, exploring this crucial field is imperative.
n PROF ZILFALIL ALWI,Head, Malaysian Node of Human Variome Project (MyHVP),President, Malaysian Society of Human Genetics