Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

More funds for bioinformatics

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is thinking of doubling its financial support for bioinformatics in the 11th plan. The current level of DBT support is Rs.70 crore, advisor to the DBT, T. Madan Mohan, has said.

He was talking to The Hindu on the sidelines of ‘Bioinformatica Indica ‘08,’ an international symposium on computational biology, bioinformatics and synthetic biology organised here by the Centre for Bioinformatics, University of Kerala. Dr. Mohan inaugurated the two-day symposium.

The thrust areas of DBT funding in the coming years would include infrastructure development, public-private partnership programmes, human resource development in BT, bio-pharmaceuticals including drug design and diagnostics, bio-agriculture, bioinformatics and computational biology. There will be no limit on the number of projects given to an institution, he said.

Kerala is doing very well in the BT sector when compared to other States in the country. Its scientists are systematic in their work and they have a focussed approach to their work. BT-related institutions should concentrate on selected areas of research rather than going in for a generalised approach, he said. “I have asked Centre Director Achuthsankar S. Nair to do focused research; the Centre can develop tools and software for drug design. They have already done some work relating to Hepatitis-C,” Dr. Mohan elaborated.

The DBT has given the Centre for Bioinformatics close to Rs.28 lakh during the 10th plan. The department will continue this support and enhance it during the 11th plan, he added.

During his inaugural address, Dr. Mohan stressed on the need for having an army of researchers with clear focus. In the next five years, the Centre should have 100 research scholars who will do focussed work on chosen research topics. In response to this suggestion from Dr. Mohan, the Centre has decided to do focused work on genomic and proteomic signal processing and computer-aided drug design. The former is about application of digital signal processing in the field of bioinformatics. Dr. Mohan made special reference to the work done by Amjesh — a student at the Centre — in identifying a new strain of Hepatitis-C virus from Indian isolates.

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