The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is planning to give its Biotechnology Information System (BTIS) programme a new thrust by reorienting the country's bioinformatics strengths towards achieving global leadership in select knowledge segments like healthcare, drug discovery and crop improvement.

The DBT is to announce fresh research grants for innovative R&D works in these three areas in the coming months. A brainstorming session to identify specific areas in these three segments that need to be given special focus has been planned by the department at Chennai early next month.

The department's decision has come as an acknowledgement of the importance bioinformatics has gained as a frontline applied science to the study of new biology. "The DBT has succeeded in its efforts to combine India's strengths in IT and molecular biology and have put in place a superior bioinformatics network.

Now that the infrastructure needs and the man power requirements are met, our aim would be to utilize the resources for undertaking world-class R&D activities and become a global competitor for the bioinformatics resources and tools," Dr Madan Mohan, director, DBT informed.

The DBT would try to promote R&D activities resulting in the development of advanced bioinformatics software tools for better understanding of biological process and also for the use of these tools in modern biology to generate useful information repositories in various fields of biotechnology such as genomics, proteomics, pharmacogenomics etc.

According to Dr Mohan, the brain storming session to be held on February 5th would have the participation of young scientists from across the country. Top scientists and BTISnet coordinators would also be part of the programme that is meant to evolve priority areas in bioinformatics in healthcare system (medical biotechnology), bioinformatics in crop improvement (agri-biotech) and molecular modeling & drug design. Once the areas have been identified, proposals would be invited from scientists/academicians all over the country, he explained.

The brainstorming session planned by DBT is to be followed by the XVth Annual BTISnet coordinators meeting at the Bioinformatics Centre of Anna University, Chennai. The annual meet would take stock of the achievements of each centre. Discussions on computational biology and genomic research, bioinformatics and its relevance in varied topics like health, crop improvement, biodiversity, environment, and the importance of networking and resource sharing would also be touched upon during the conference.

BTISnet comprises one Apex Centre at the Department of Biotechnology, ten specialized Distributed Information Centres (DICs) in identified major areas of biotechnology and 50 Distributed Information Sub-Centres (Sub-DICs).