India and Malaysia would soon jointly announce a work plan for major collaborative initiatives in the field of bioinformatics between both the countries. India would be helping Malaysia in human resource development in the particular sector by asking select Indian universities to conduct short-term courses for the benefit of Malaysian students.
There would also be an attempt to identify R&D activities in bioinformatics, which are of mutual interest for the future of Indo-Malaysian cooperation. Based on a protocol of cooperation between the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Government of India and the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Environment of Government of Malaysia, the work plan envisages a joint programme where both countries can share their resources and introduce post-doctoral exchange programme in bioinformatics.
Joint research programmes and exploratory visit of Malaysian delegation to various premier institutions in India and vice versa to identify new areas in biotechnology for future cooperation have also been decided. Exchange visits of scientists as course facilitators for technical courses/seminars and short-term attachment with institutions of both countries for specific training in bioinformatics have been agreed upon.
According to S&T Ministry sources, the two countries would soon host a common web site to showcase Indo-Malaysian cooperation in bioinformatics. The bioinformatics resources such as databases and software tools that are of public domain would be shared between the two countries and would be hosted on the website. "Each party would provide authentication to the other to update their resources directly. The materials of proprietary / copyright nature would also be exchanged with necessary mutually agreed user authentication. The BIOGRID node at Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad would be requested to bring out a joint e-news letter, which will be hosted on the site," sources explained.
As part of the agreement, both the countries have agreed to exchange 10 post-doctoral fellows to work in bioinformatics area between the two countries. Exchange of short-term attachments of middle level technical person / Ph D students would benefit four students at a time. The expense of these attachments would be as per the agreed programmed of co-operation signed by the Malaysia-India joint S&T committee. It has been decided that on the request of one party, the other shall depute specialists in the area of Bioinformatics as course facilitators.
Technical meeting of scientists in the collaborative projects would be undertaken to evaluate progress and future direction of the programme.