Vietnamese VN1K Pangenome Resource Published for Precision Medicine

A team of Vietnamese researchers led by Prof. Võ Sỹ Nam and Prof. Vũ Hà Văn published the VN1K project in Nature Communications. The study presents the first large‑scale gene, multi‑omics and phenomics dataset for the Vietnamese population, analyzing DNA from 1,011 individuals across 53 provinces. The resource captures over 42 million genetic variants, including about 8.5 million not recorded in international databases, and introduces the Vietnamese PanGenome Reference (VPR).

VN1K aims to improve the accuracy of genetic analysis for disease research, drug‑response prediction and precision‑medicine initiatives in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Applications already include predictive models for roughly 150 drug groups and the "Right Drug for Me" program, which provides genetic testing for children with epilepsy.

The project, started in 2018 at VinUni’s Large Data Research Institute, involved more than 40 Vietnamese scientists and several international collaborators, establishing a crucial genetic reference for future biomedical research in the region.