A seven-day national workshop on “Computational Approaches to Drug Discovery” hosted as part of the silver jubilee celebrations of the Biotechnology Information System Network (BTISNET) of the Department of Biotechnology began under the auspices of the Centre for Bioinformatics, Pondicherry University on Wednesday.
The main objective of the workshop is to impart knowledge in the field of computer-aided drug discovery and focus on the advancement and exploration of modern trends in the field such as computational strategies, bioinformatics tools, biological databases, molecular modelling, analysing bio-molecular interactions and rational drug design.
Inaugurating the event, T. Madhan Mohan, Advisor, Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, advised the students to take up job opportunities in the area of Next Generation Sequencing and Big Data Analysis.
He highlighted the bioinformatics growth and activities across the country. He also briefed about the financial support provided by the Department of Biotechnology in the area of bioinformatics teaching and research activities.
The experimental validation of bioinformatics research should be taken in collaboration with industries and government agencies, he said.
Session on software
The workshop will be featuring a hands-on session to explore various software and databases requisite for computer aided drug design for research and development of new drugs.
The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Gurmeet Singh in his presidential address highlighted the importance the bioinformatics research which saves time and money in research and development. He emphasised the need of basic education in India.
He urged the student community to translate ideas into inventions for the betterment of the common public.
On the opening day, Prof. Kumar Somasundaram from Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, delivered a talk on “The biology of cancer: Understanding the altered genome and epigenome” highlighting the basis of cancer and understanding the complete genetic landscape of the entire cancer genome.
Former Heads of the Department of Centre for Bioinformatics Dr. P.P. Mathur, Dr. Priya Davidar and the Dean, School of Life Sciences Dr. Parthasarathy, Prof. A. Dinakara Rao, organising secretary and Prof. P.T.V Lakshmi, Centre for Bioinformatics participated.
Dr. H.S.P. Rao, Head of the Department stressed the need for high performance computing facility to benefit the students and research scholars of the centre.
More than 40 participants from different parts of the country participated in the workshop.
