Venue:
National Science Seminar Complex
J. N. Tata Auditorium
Indian Institute of Science Campus
Bangalore
 

Rapid developments in the analysis of microbial and human genes (genomics) as well as the analysis of gene products and their expression (proteomics) have revolutionized biomedical sciences in the 21st century. New technologies have been developed to simultaneously assess the levels of expression of many thousands of different genes using DNA microarrays.

Thus, monitoring the expression of thousands of gene products will undoubtedly generate enormous volumes of data which need to be analysed. This need has resulted in a new discipline called “Bioinformatics”. In the age of unprecedented advances in IT, the developments in genomics / proteomics / bioinformatics clearly offer unique opportunities in the field of Life Sciences with particular reference to new and novel drug discovery for human, animal and plant diseases.

To bring these developments to the scientific, industrial and investment community in India, an International Symposium on Bioinformatics and Genomics has been organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), in conjuntion with Government of Karnataka’s Biotechnology Task Force, AstraZeneca Research Foundation, India and The Biocon India Group.

This symposium will be the first of its kind to be held in India and is structured with a series of lectures from international experts in the emerging and challenging domain of Bioinformatics & Genomics. As the name suggests, Bioinformatics is a fusion of information technology and biotechnology or very simply, the application of computer technology in the management of biological information. The nomenclature of Genomics and Proteomics is used to denote the use of Bioinformatics for mining generic and protein-related databases respectively.

The explosion of data being generated from the Human Genome Project as well as from generic studies of microbial and plant systems together with High Throughput Screening programmes in drug research has created the need for high computing power and specialised software to enable biologists and geneticists to mine such data. The Human Genome Project (HGP) alone will result in sequencing data equivalent to about 3 billion base pairs.

Bioinformatics will now provide an integrated approach of mining the voluminous data generated by the HGP to identify and understand human diseases and to develop corresponding drug and gene based therapies. The importance of Bioinformatics is gaining rapid acceptance and bioinformatics groups comprising computational biologists, computer scientists as well as computer engineers are being constituted at Universities, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and at national research institutes.

Bioinformatics is still in its nascency in the country as a whole but India’s strong IT base provides an enormous opportunity for Indian companies to make rapid strides for exponential growth in this emerging sector.
 

The major topics that will be covered during the three days symposium are as follows:

1) Leveraging Advances in Information Technology for Application in Life Sciences:

· Knowledge Driven Directions in Pharmaceutical Research

· Information Management in Biotechnology
 

2) Genomics and its Impact on Biotechnology:

· Integration of Genomics into Life Sciences R&D

· Advanced Technologies in Gene Discovery
 

3) The Biotech Business:

· Intellectual Property and Human Resource Issues