Centre for Bioinformatics

Dr. P. P. Mathur, Head

The Centre for Bioinformatics was established as Sub-DIC in the year 1991-92 which was later upgraded to DIC. The Centre has taken an initiative in manpower development in Bioinformatics and started an Advanced Post- graduate Diploma Course in Bioinformatics with the support from the Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi in the year 2001.

The Centre has so far conducted twenty one seminars, workshops and training programmes in the last fourteen years. The Centre has been offering a four credit course in Bioinformatics to the students of the University since 1994.

The Centre has undertaken several collaborative projects in various areas like comparative genomics, Zinc finger protein engineering, molecular modeling, drug target identification, development of teaching aids in bioinformatics, etc. The Centre has been providing computational facilities, bibliographic searches, bioinformatics related services to its users. More than 150 regular users from various departments of Pondicherry University, affiliated institutions and nearby Universities have been using these facilities. The Centre has 4 positions of Studentship/Traineeship of one-year duration sponsored by DBT, Government of India, to train post-graduate degree holders in various aspects of bioinformatics.

Programmes of Study

M.Sc. Bioinformatics
Ph.D. Bioinformatics
Advanced Post-graduate Diploma in Bioinformatics*


*Subject to approval by DBT, Government of India

Stipend
A stipend of Rs.5,000/- p.m. is provided by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, New Delhi for all the students.

Entrance Examination

Ph.D.
Only NET qualified students are admitted for the Ph.D Programme.

M.Sc. Bioinformatics
Selection of studetns is based on entrance examination conducted at various centers inthe country. The test consists of multiple choice questions in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Chemistry, Biophysics, Computer Science, Statistics and Mathematics.

The question paper for Advance Postgraduate Diploma programme will be of the objective type having 90 questions. For Ph.D. programme candidates qualified for JRF (CSIR) and those selected for projects are eligible.

Special Grants
The M.Sc. (Bioinformatics is supported by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi under the Innovative Programme - Teaching and reserach in Interdisciplinary & Emerging areas. The Advacnes P.G. Diploma in Bioinformatics is supported by the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India. The centre is receiving grants from various organizations like DBT, DST and Ministry of Information Technology.

Infrastructure Facilities

Computers, Accessories & Communication Facility AMD Opteron Server, Wipro Xeon @ 3.0 Ghz Server, Silicon Graphics Fuel Machine, Around 35 Pentium IV workstations which runs on both Windows and Linux Operating Systems, HP 4600 DN color Laser, HP 2200DN Laser Printer, Digital Photo Copiers, Epson LQ 2180 Dot Matrix Printer, HP 4P- Laser Printer, HP Inkjet 810 & 670 C, *) col. Color printer & 132 col. Printers.

A Linux based Beowulf type clustering with 1 master and slaves are available for molecular dynamics and simulation. Setting up a dedicated clustering server is in process.

The Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, New Delhi has sanctioned a special grant for a dedicated 2 Mbps connectivity exclusively for the Center for Bioinformatics at Pondicherry University.

Scientific Software packages
Insight II, Amber, DS Modeling suite, Autodock 3.0, Dock 5.0. Modeller 6.0. Gromos 96. whatif, EMBOSS, BioEdit, GeneScan, DNSIS, Statistica, Endnote.

Resources & Services
Web server for sequence analysis, Blast, Predict Protein, Sequence Manipulation suite are available at http:// www.bicpu.edu.in Web server for offline balst for sequence homology search is available at http:// www.bicpu.edu.in/blast Web based database administration tool phpmyadmin is available at http:// www.bicpu.edu.in Free Biosoftware Artemis, Bioedit, Clustal W, Glimmer, Munner, Philip etc. are available at http://www.bicpu.edu.in A minor site of all publicly available protein structure co-ordinate in the form of the Protein Data Bank available at http:// www.bicpu.edu.in.pdb A full mirror of the SCOP database linked to PDB available at http://www.bicpu.edu.in/ scop

Database & other information resources

Books
300 books ( In addition to the books available in the Central Library)

Journals
Science, Nature, Scientific, American Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Briefings in Bioinformatics, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Structural Biology, Cell, Linux Magazine.

Access to CD-ROM Resources
Access to science-Direct and EBSCO database

Thrust Areas of Research
DNA-Protein Interactions, Genome Sequence analysis, Protein Structure Modeling, Molecular modeling, Drug Design.

Special Grants
The Center has received research grants from various organizations like DBT and others.

Placement Details
Some of the students trained in the Center are placed in the following organizations between 2001 and 2005:

  •  Institute of Bioinformatics, Bangalore
  •  Orissa Agricultural University, Bhubaneshwar
  •  HNB Garhwal University, Srinagar
  •  University of Madras, Chennai
  •  Central Sericulture Research & Training Institute, Mysore
  •  Vector Control Research Centre, Puducherry
  •  Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
  •  Protein Lounge, Bhubaneshwar.
  •  Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, U.S.A.
  •  Genemines, Chennai
  •  HCL Infosystems, Puducherry
  •  Molecular Connections, Bangalore
  •  Pondicherry University
Faculty Qualification Specialization/Interest Phone
 Professor
 * P.P. Mathur (ppmathur.bic@pondiuni.edu.in)  Ph.D. (Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi)  Biochemistry of Reproduction, Molecular Biology,  Environmental Endocrinology, Bioinformatics  419,417 
 Lecturers
  R. Krishna  Ph.D. (University of Madras, Chennai)  X-Ray Crystallography (Proteins), Molecular Modeling (Protein & DNA)
  M. Suresh Kumar  Ph.D. (University of Madras, Chennai)  Structural Studies on Visual Proteins, Promiscuity of Antibodies, Inhibitators for Viral Proteases


* Recognised as Supervisor for guiding scholars leading to M.Phil. and Ph.D.

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