In an attempt to cater to the changing needs of the biotech industry, Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) is gearing up to offer postgraduate course in cheminformatics. The first batch of students will be admitted from November 2007 and the total intake of candidates will be 10, according to informed sources.

"The IBAB creates new courses in response to perceived industry demand. It develops courses for which it has control over the content. The curriculum is regularly updated and modified in response to changing demand of industry, said Dr. Gayatri Saberwal from the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology.

IBAB has already two postgraduate courses, one in bioinformatics and other in bio-techniques, in its kitty. The postgraduate course in bioinformatics is a multi-disciplinary course, attracting students from many streams, while bio-techniques course emphasis on lab techniques and biotech students could also apply for the course. With an intake of 40 students, bioinformatics course runs for 18 full months, of which 6 months are dedicated for internship. The duration of postgraduate course in bio-techniques is 12 months and the total strength of each batch is 25, it is learnt. Both the courses offered by IBAB are known for its job-oriented curriculum and are equally in demand with several 100 students applying for each course annually.

In the last five years, 219 students have passed out of IBAB. They are employed in diverse areas such as wet lab R&D, bioinformatics programming, data mining and curation, drug modeling, creation and management of databases and the like, while three students have started their own companies, informed sources said.

According to Dr. Saberwal, it is crucial and important for students to take on additional training before being hired by industry. " Students often have excellent theoretical knowledge, but there is a major need for lab expertise. Also, it is vital for students to up-to-date themselves with modern biology and go in for training that is more inter-disciplinary than what is normally taught in the undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The training gives them a flexibility to take up whatever challenges the company job entails," she added.

Looking forward, IBAB will keep fine-tuning its current programmes, in an effort to bring out right candidate for the right job. It will also constantly look for ways to improve the course content and the training.

It was the Karnataka's department of IT and BT in association with ICICI that set-up IBAB in 2002. With the involvement of leading academic institutes and industry, IBAB aims to achieve high standards in bioinformatics and biotechnology education, research and entrepreneurship.