Letters To The Notes - December 3, 2005

The scope of bioinformatics
I would like to know more about colleges offering courses in bioinformatics in India, preferably Kerala.
- Sajeev

Bioinformatics is the field of science in which biology, computer science and information technology merge to form a single discipline. It has three sub-disciplines which look into:

- The development of new algorithms and statistics with which to assess relationships among members of large data sets

- The analysis and interpretation of various types of data including nucleotide and amino acid sequences, protein domains and protein structures

- The development and use of tools that enable efficient access and management of different types of information.

The general belief about bioinformatics is that it comprises only genomics and proteomics. Genomics is the study of total molecular sequencing of a set of genes of an organism. Proteomics is about amino acid sequences and the three-dimensional structure related to the function of proteins. It is concerned with compounds of high molecular weight (HMW). But of late, cheminformatics (study of low molecular weight (LMW) compounds), glycomics (study of carbohydrates), metabolics (study of metabolic pathways in organism) and drug design through bioinformatics are being projected as areas of bioinformatics.

Scope: The field is being rated as a number one career option in the field of biosciences. Pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies are increasingly establishing large bioinformatics research and development divisions.

Functional genomics, proteomics, discovery of new drugs and vaccines, molecular diagnostic kits and pharmacogenomics are some of the areas in which bioinformatics has become an integral part of research and development.

A student of bioinformatics:

- Must have knowledge of multimedia databases,

- And must know how to use the tools to carry out data analysis and modelling of molecules and biological systems on computer workstations as well as in a network environment.

The following are some of the colleges that offer bioinformatics courses in India.

- Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) in Bangalore
http://www.ibab.ac.in/ .

- Indian Institute of Technology New Delhi ( www.iitd.ernet.in/) provides courses in biochemical engineering and biotechnology. A branch of the institute, IIT Kharagpur, also provides courses in this area. A student must sit for the IIT-JEE (Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Exam) entrance exam for admission into IITs. Visit any of the IIT websites for more details.

- The Bioinformatics Centre at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi offers an Advanced (graduate) Diploma in Bioinformatics.
http://202.41.10.34/dip.html.

- Madurai Kamaraj University in Madurai, Tamil Nadu
http://www.biotechmku.org/.

- The University of Pune, Maharashtra, offers an Advanced Diploma in Bioinformatics at its Bioinformatics Centre.
http://bioinfo.ernet.in/.

- The National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore (It is a new centre of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.)
www.ncbs.res.in/

- Bioinformatics Institute of India, Noida, Delhi
http://www.bioinformaticscentre.org/

As for Kerala, there is no college that provides an undergraduate degree in bioinformatics. However, the following institutions do offer a bachelor's degree in biotechnology. Some of them offer postgraduate diplomas in bioinformatics.

- Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Thiruvananthapuram
www.rgcb.res.in/

- Sri Chitrathirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram
www.sctimst.ac.in/

- Indian Institute of Spices Research, Kozhikode
www.iisr.org/

- Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Molecular Biology, Kerala Agricultural University
www.kau.edu

- Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies (MACFAST), Thiruvalla
www.macfast.org/

- Bio Informatics Centre
http://www.btisnet.nic.in/

Master's in bioinformatics
I am a postgraduate in zoology and have a postgraduate diploma in software engineering. I am working as a teacher. I want to do postgraduation in bioinformatics. Is there an online course?
- Rekha

The scope of bioinformatics as a field has been dealt with in the previous question. As per your request, following are some universities that offer a postgraduate degree in bioinformatics.

- Exeter University
www.ex.ac.uk/

- Cardiff University
www.cf.ac.uk/

- University of Manchester
www.manchester.ac.uk/

- University of Duesseldorf
http://www.bioinformatik.de

- Bioinformatics Institute of India
http://www.biionline.org

- University of California, San Diego
http://bioscience.ucsd.edu/

- Programme offered jointly by the University of Leeds and the University of Manchester www.cs.man.ac.uk/biomed/bioinformatics.html

You will find links to about 50 odd online courses by using the link given below:
http://www.colorbasepair.com/bioinformatics_courses_tutorials.html

The following links will take you to some more online courses

- Algorithms for Molecular Biology
http://www.math.tau.ac.il/~shamir/algmb.html

- Algorithms in Molecular Biology: CSE590BI
http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/527/

- Virtual School of Natural Sciences BioComputing Division (VSNS-BCD) A hypertext coursebook in biocomputing
http://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/bcd/Curric/welcome.html

- The Virtual School of Molecular Sciences
http://www.vms.nottingham.ac.uk/vsms/index.html

Biotechnology/genetic engineering
Kindly provide me the contact details of colleges in Bangalore and Mumbai in India that offer biotechnology and genetic engineering courses after grade 12.
- N. Venkatraman

The institutes that offers undergraduate programmes in genetic engineering in India include:

- Kakatiya University, Warangal
www.kuwarangal.com/

- Osmania University, Hyderabad
www.osmania.ac.in

- AWH Special College (unaided; affiliated to University of Calicut) B.Sc. Genetics (A three-year course)

- SRM Institute of Science and Technology (Deemed University)
www.srmuniv.ac.in.

Biotechnology programmes are offered at the following universities in Maharashtra and Karnataka:

- Department of Biotechnology
www.unipune.ernet.in/dept/biotech/home.html

- Institute of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology
www.ibbpune.org/

- Bioinformatics Centre, University of Pune, India
bioinfo.ernet.in/

- Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University
www.bharatividyapeeth.edu/

- Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB), Bangalore
www.ibab.ac.in/

- Bioinformatics Institute of India, Noida
http://www.bioinformaticscentre.org/

- Sindhu Mahvidyalaya, ( Maharashtra)
www.smvnagpur.ac.in/

Outside the area of your choice, the programmes are offered at:

- Anna University, Centre for Biotechnology, Guindy, Chennai Tamil Nadu
www.annauniv.edu

- Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai Tamil Nadu
www.iitm.ac.in/

- Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, Bangalore
www.ibab.ac.in

- Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh
www.jntu.ac.in/

- Kakatiya University, Vidyavanyapuri, Andhra Pradesh
www.kuwarangal.com/

- Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai Tamil Nadu
www.mkuniversity.org/

- Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala
www.mguniversity.edu/

- National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), GKVK Campus, Karnataka
www.ncbs.res.in/

- Osmania University, Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh
www.osmania.ac.in

- The higher education responses have been given by Subramanian K., head of the Dubai branch of Career Launcher, one of India's largest education companies