Indian scientist Vivek Bajpai and his team identified 135 new melanin genes related to pigmentation.
According to a study published in the journal Science, the color of the skin, hair, and eyes of more than eight billion people is determined by a light-absorbing pigment known as melanin.
Melanin is produced in special structures called melanosomes.
Melanosomes are found in melanin-producing pigment cells called melanocytes.

Although all people have the same number of melanocytes, the amount of melanin they produce varies and causes variation in a person's skin color, the researchers said. "To understand what actually causes different amounts of melanin, we used a technique called CRISPR-Cas9 to genetically modify the cells," said Bajpai, lead author and associate professor at the University of Oklahoma.
"Using CRISPR, we systematically deleted more than 20,000 genes from hundreds of millions of melanocytes and observed an effect on melanin production," he added.