About Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is a multidisciplinary area that is growing very fast both at the level of industry as well as academics. University of Pune is one of the first few organizations in the world to launch M.Sc. program in Bioinformatics to meet the manpower requirement of industry as well as research institutes. Bioinformaticians are in great demand worldwide. Students with physics, chemistry, mathematics and statistics background with basic knowledge of biology can help in developing new algorithms and tools of bioinformatics. Those with background in biological, medical and veterinary sciences can use bioinformatics tools to extract useful knowledge in the areas of biodiversity, drug and vaccine development, agro-biotechnology, environmental biotechnology etc. Bioinformatics Centre of the University of Pune is one among the top ten in the world with highly competent faculty, state-of-the-art computing facilities and user-friendly library. A few fellowships to students are awarded on a semester-to-semester basis for proven academic performance. For additional information please visit (http://bioinfo.ernet.in)

About Department

Bioinformatics Centre at the University of Pune was established in 1987 and has started its research activities in various areas of Bioinformatics. The Centre has been identified as the Center of Excellence (CoE) in Bioinformatics by Department of Biotechnology (DBT) Govt. of India and Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Govt of India. The Centre was the first in the world to develop the web-based Animal Virus Information System (AVIS) database and necessary software tools to extract knowledge from these and other similar databases. In early years, the leadership at the Centre realized that growth in Bioinformatics could be accelerated by interacting/collaborating with experimental biologists/biotechnologists. A peptide vaccine against Japanese encephalitis virus has been developed in collaboration with National Institute of Virology by using bioinformatics knowledge and systematic experiments. Research in protein folding, database creation and knowledge extraction, drug design and metabolic pathway engineering continues in the Centre. Centre has developed a few derived databases viz. VirGen (a comparative genomics resource for viruses), AgAbDb (Antigen-Antibody interaction database) and Metabolic Pathway engineering resource. Some of the algorithms developed at the centre in the area of prediction of peptide structure and immunoinformatics are well known and cited extensively. The centre has also developed servers for prediction of epitopes.

In 1997 the Centre launched a one-year Advanced Diploma training program in Bioinformatics (ADB) for postgraduate students in diverse disciplines. Five years later, the Centre launched the first-ever four-semester M.Sc. course in Bioinformatics in the country. A part-time certificate course in clinical research has also been started. The Centre has conducted several national and international workshops and training programmes since its inception. The Centre has been working as a nodal agency to coordinate and conduct BINC (Bioinformatics National Certification Examination) instituted by the Department of Biotechnology Govt. of India since 2005.

The Centre has highly qualified full time faculty members. There is a large number of highly qualified visiting faculty from various departments of the University of Pune as well as other institutions in Pune. Scientists from reputed institutions from elsewhere in the country viz. Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai & Delhi, Anna University, Chennai etc also contribute to the teaching program in the Centre. The Centre has extremely capable and highly qualified technical and support staff and is known for its computing facilities, internet connectivity, large number of biological databases and software tools. The library has a very good collection of textbooks, reference material and journals, both printed and electronic. The total infrastructure and facilities available at the Centre are comparable to the best in the world. In spite of the fact that the Centre does not conduct any campus interviews or make any special efforts for the placement of the students, it has very good interaction with industry and carries an envious record of its students being absorbed by industry and R & D institutions in India and abroad. Some of the students have turned out to be successful entrepreneurs and produced well-established profit making ventures in a short span of time. Faculty members of the Centre are on the Advisory Board of several Bioinformatics Companies and attracted R & D projects from biotechnology and bioinformatics companies.