A three day workshop on 'Pharmacoinformatics: QSAR' was inaugurated by Prof. S. P. Gupta, BITS, Pilani at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) on 1st March, 2006.

The workshop mainly focuses on quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR), an advanced technique which is gaining importance in the area of drug discovery and development. Structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies help to understand the relationship between intrinsic molecular features and biological properties. Specific cases of these studies include quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs), quantitative structure-property relationships (QSPRs) for predicting the physico-chemical properties of molecules and quantitative structure-toxicity relationships (QSTRs) for predicting toxicity of molecules.

The workshop includes 13 lectures by eminent speakers from academia and the pharma industry followed by five interactive sessions, 'hands-on' practical training and poster presentations. There will also be industrial presentation by leading national and international pharmaceutical industries viz Tripos, v Life Sciences, Schrödinger and Chemical Computing Group.

About sixty participants from different parts of the country are attending the workshop. The participants will be given exposure to the latest software in the area of QSAR. The workshop will provide drug discovery scientists, researchers, managers and students an insight into the ways of different aspects of QSAR.

Pharmacoinformatics is a new discipline integrating the field of bioinformatics, chemoinformatics, in silico ADME/T methods, medical informatics, etc. which makes it pertinent to satiate the needs of pharmaceutical sciences by providing scientific and technical tools, for target specific drug design and development. The workshop is third in series being organised by the National Centre for Pharmacoinformatics, which was set up at NIPER with financial support of Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi. The three-day workshop started with the welcome address by Prof. P. Rama Rao, director, NIPER. Dr S. P. Gupta, professor of chemistry, BITS, Pilani, and a renowned academician was the guest of honour for the workshop.