'Bioinformatics edun should be blend of Eastern, Western methods'

Bangalore, Sep 22 (UNI) The nascent Bioinformatics education needs a fusion of Eastern kind of lateral thinking and Western rigour to take the subject to the heights of IT, Union Department of Science and Technology Secretary Dr T Ramasami said today.

Delivering the convocation address at the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) here, he said Bioinformatics held great future for the country, but developing core faculty would be vital.

He said the leather industry had proved how important advances in bioinformatics was as bio-process, now being increasingly adopted in treating leather, had helped bring down the high pollution caused when highly toxic chromium was used earlier.

IISC Honorary professor and well known biotechnologist Prof M Vijayan said bioinformatics was a niche area, but the institutes teaching this subject were yet to get stabilised. This needed to be nurtured and sustained growth had to be ensured. Core support was needed both from private industry and the Government. Scholarship was the basic need of this field and a recurring offering of scholarship to talented students would go a long way in sustaining the research work that had just begun.

Institute Director Prof N Yathindra said the IBAB, which had its beginning five years ago, had emerged as a leading institution. Both Vision group on Biotechnology and the Department of IT and BT of the Karnataka Government had to be congratulated for setting up such a unique institution, perhaps the first public-private partnership in the area of life sciences in the country.

UNI RS GD GM2035