BIOINFORMATICS IS AN UPCOMING FIELD OF GREAT RELEVANCE TO AGRICULTURE: DR. KANG

A three day training programme on 'Gene and Protein Sequence Analysis: Applications in Agriculture' for agricultural scientists was organized by the Bioinformatics Centre of PAU at School of Agricultural Biotechnology (SAB) under a DBT funded project 'Sub-distributed Information Center in Bioinformatics'. The Sub-distributed Center is a part of national Biotechnology Information System (BTIS) Network consisting of 143 centres. Dr Manjit Singh Kang, Vice Chancellor, PAU, in his presidential address, shared that before the era of bioinformatics, only two ways of performing biological experiments were available: within a living organism (in vivo) or in an artificial environment (in vitro). Bioinformatics is the third way of performing biology i.e. in silico, he said. Dr. Kang emphasized the importance of Bioinformatics in crop improvement for developing biotic and abiotic stress tolerant and nutritionally improved crop varieties. Dr Kang congratulated the scientists of the PAU for successfully introducing the subject to the faculty and students and the trainees for acquiring the practical information on the subject and wished them to apply the knowledge in their scientific pursuits to make their research more output oriented. Dr Kang also distributed certificates to the trainees.



According to Dr (Mrs) Parveen Chhuneja, 33 scientists from 10 different departments of PAU acquired this training which involved 8 lectures and equal number of demonstrations and hands-on practicals she said that the Bioinformatics Centre has so far organized eight trainings for the scientists of the various universities.



Speaking on the occasion, Dr S.S. Gosal, Director, SAB said that the Bioinformatics has become important field with exponential growth in DNA and protein sequence data and has evolved as a full-fledged multidisciplinary subject that integrates information and computer technology as applied to Biotechnology and Biological Sciences. The function ended with vote of thanks by Dr G.S. Miglani, Adjunct Professor at SAB.
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