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Bioinformatics – the buzzword
What is bioinformatics?
 Bioinformatics is the latest
and hottest buzzword in the field of science in which biology, computer
science and IT merge into a single discipline. The ultimate goal of
bioinformatics is to enable the discovery of new biological insights as well
as to create a global perspective from which unifying principles in biology
can be discerned.
The bioinformatics industry
IDC has estimated that IT
spending in biosciences will cross $ 138 million (Rs 700 crore) in India by
2005 with a CAGR exceeding 10 per cent. That opens up a new market for the
growth of domestic infotech companies if they are able to develop an
understanding of the infotech needs in biotechnology processes.
These applications will span
areas in which vast volumes of data from disparate databases has to be mined,
managed and analysed. Parallelly, there is a growth for the export segment
Las. The worldwide spend on use of IT in this area – bioinformatics - is
also likely to spiral upwards with estimates of a $ 20 billion spend worldwide
by 2007. Of this, the US alone is likely to account for almost $ 7 billion.
The biotechnology industry
has more than tripled in size between 1992 and 2001, with revenue increasing
from $ 8 billion to $ 27.6 billion. In 2001, there were 191,000 US employees,
and more opportunities are expected in healthcare, food production, and
environmental cleanup www.bio.org
 Growing technology The last
two decades have witnessed the emergence of bioinformatics as a major thrust
area in the global scientific scenario. As the interface between the two most
rapidly advancing fields of biological and computational sciences,
bioinformatics is immense in scope and vast in applications. Bioinformatics
has gained immensely from the quantum change in computational techniques, both
in terms of hardware and software.
Says Sudhir Mathur, head,
global marketing, Aptech Ltd, “Bioinformation will lead the future in the
form of new drug development, new markers for diseases, vaccines, correction
of genetic disorders and in our fundamental understanding of living systems.
This will create an on-going demand for trained manpower in this area.”
 To fill the huge
demand-supply gap in this sphere, SSI, India’s leading training provider in
high-end technologies, has come up with its industry-relevant bioinformatics
course designed to create world-class professionals on a par with the best in
the world.
Companies and governments in
the business of developing drugs, agricultural, chemicals, hybrid plants,
plastics, petroleum derivatives and IT are developing bioinformatics divisions
and looking to bioinformatics to provide new avenues and research output to
help replace scarce natural resources.
Advantage India With its
traditional base of trained manpower, this opens up a huge new field for
Indian companies to grow in. To make this happen, a convergence of IT
specialists, mathematicians, agricultural scientists doctors and many other
specialists are required. Biotech area spans diverse fields that include the
study of the human body, drug research, healthcare, agricultural research,
etc., and no single academic discipline is enough for the developments that
are taking place. Each of these areas needs huge amounts of data to be
gathered and analysed on the basics of accepted and new algorithms.
Career opportunities would
include database design, database management and computational analysis.
Considering that India has a large pool of scientific talent available at
reasonable cost, a strong IT skilled, English-speaking population, huge
bio-diversity and a large number of research and development institutes, it
would have a big role to play in the sunrise industry.
The jobs currently available
in bioinformatics involve the design and implementation of programs and
systems for the storage, management and analysis of vast amounts of DNA
sequence data. Such positions require in-depth programming and relational
database skills, which very few biologists possess, and so it is largely the
computational specialists who are filling these roles. This is not to say the
computer-savvy biologist doesn’t play an important role.
 Learn more Whether you are an
engineer or a life-science student, looking to further your career, it is
bioinformatics for you. SSI Education’s comprehensive one-year course on
bioinformatics is split into three modules of four months each, helping the
student take a step-by-step approach. This course demands a prerequisite basic
knowledge in life-science and computer technologies. This course will be
offered at select SSI centres across the country. The course is also offered
in a Fast Track option and can be completed in six months.
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The
modules cover various bioinformatics related topics such as proteomics,
genomics, bioinformatic tools, bioweave, molecular biology, pharmacogenomics,
and advanced genetics. Most importantly, the final module allows the student
to take up a project, offered in association with leading research
organisation Gemeiosys, through which he/she will be able to apply his/her
bioinformatics knowledge to a select area.
Gemeiosys Research Labs India
Pvt Ltd is a research organisation working in the field of biotechnology with
specialisation in bioinformatics. Based in India and in Germany, Gemeiosys has
varied experience in the development of scientific computing, networking and
high throughput platforms to aid research in the area of drug discovery.
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