National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) has entered into a memorandum of understanding with ReUnion University, France. The pact is committed to forging long term strategic alliances in the area of Bioinformatics which will increase interactions, facilitate collaboration, exchange visits and joint doctorate studentships between the NCBS and Bioinformatics companies/universities in France.

The Bangalore-based NCBS bioinformatics members has been involved in promoting and initiating interactions with start-up companies and Bioinformaticians in Lyon, Dr. Sowdhamini from NCBS told Pharmabiz in an email interview.

The major strengths of the French scientists are in the areas of the mathematical modelling and applications of bioinformatics to biological areas like metabolic networks, micro arrays, transcriptomes and immunology. The fortes of Indian scientific teams are in protein structural analysis, algorithm development and genome analyses. The application-oriented projects emerging from France could be effectively linked to the rigorous structural analyses and modelling expertise of Indian Bioinformaticians, informed Dr Sowdhamini.

The NCBS has also submitted one more research project proposals to CEFIPRA which was also finalized during Third Indo- French Bioinformatics (IFBM2006) meeting at Bangalore recently. The Indian bioinformatics teams' have also initiated preliminary interactions between structural biologists from India and microarray/transcriptome experts in France to discuss the possibility of joint work that might lead to future collaborations. There were also introductions and discussions between members of startup companies in Delhi and French delegates at Lyon in mainland France to facilitate future interactions.

In order to provide a fillip to the interactions between India and France in Bioinformatics, the IFBM2006 organized in partnership with NCBS, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France and French Embassy in India had over 100 participants from companies and institutes with 30 speakers, 60 registrations and 50 poster displays. The event proved to be a platform for new research directions involving young investigators.

The main objective of the IFBM2006 was to promote exchanges and collaborations between Indian and French scientists in biology, mathematics, computer sciences and inclined to Computational Biology.

Some of the speakers representing companies included Dr Phillipe Benech of Parc Scientifique et Technologique de Luminy and Dr. Sharmila Mande of Tata Consultancy Services. Indian companies presence included Jubliant BioSys, HCL (Unilever), Avasthagen, MASCON LifeSciences and SCFBio IIT Delhi.

The next annual IFBM2007 is scheduled to be at Montpellier located in the South of France. The first Indo-French bioinformatics meeting was held in Delhi and Hyderabad in 2003. The second Indo-French bioinformatics meeting was held in La ReUnion Islands in 2004.