New Delhi: The US-based Bioinformatics Research Center (BRC) and the New Delhi-based Centre for Development of Knowledge and Awareness (CEDKA) have announced an alliance under the research consortium Joint Indo-American Bioinformatics Alliance (JIABA).

The mutual application of expertise and skills by the two organisations will be augmented by joint research, training and other programmes in the field of multidisciplinary bioinformatics.

The joint research will be done by involving leading scientists and researchers from both countries. Both the organisations will become the nodal agencies for maintaining joint research data that can be used for multifarious applications.

CEDKA and its collaborators will initiate a series of projects to establish communication, joint project infrastructure, and cross-programme training between the faculty, students and their collaborators in India and America. This effort will further support joint bioinformatics research and intellectual transfer between the centres and their collaborators.

The joint research will leverage the expertise of both countries. It will also create new technologies and developments. It will compliment the expertise on basic and applied research. The four projects announced at the launch include:

• Project A: Protein Sequence and Structure analysis
• Project B: Data mining for biomedical research
• Project C: Disease-Oriented research
• Project D: Indian Bioinformatics database development

Says CEDKA director Dr Mahesh Dutt: “ In the age of globalisation, when the whole world has become a kind of small village, the significance of information sharing cannot be underestimated. JIABA is our tool to achieve this very goal of sharing information as a global player.

“JIABA offers Indians as well as their American counterpart scientists a symbiotic association in the field of bioinformatics. The outcome of this alliance would go a long way to benefit pharma and IT companies, researchers, and graduates who wish to make a career in bioinformatics.”

Says BRC director Dr Peter Tonellato: “Bioinformatics has become the facilitating discipline to bridge the scientific investigations of the complexity of disease genetics with computer technology and mathematical theory. Our future and health will depend on the extend of our success in the next few years to efficiently apply the rapidly emerging breakthroughs in computer hardware and science to the biomedical health research fields.

“Coupling technology with high-throughput data collection and the forthcoming discovery paradigm will provide the basis of the new hypothesis-driven discovery research that will lead to breakthroughs in clinical applications of genome discoveries. We are very interested in exploring the possibility of a joint alliance with Indian scientists to further the goals of this proposed new alliance.”

Says Argonne National Laboratory head (bioinformatics group) Dr Natalia Maltsev: “I am very enthusiastic about formation of JIABA. I believe that it will facilitate useful scientific collaborations between the scientists in both countries. Open dialogue and exchange of ideas between the researchers with different educational and cultural backgrounds are vital for the scientific progress, especially in such dynamic field as bioinformatics.

“India is famous around the world for the high quality of its education and creative cultural roots. During my scientific career I’ve met a lot of talented Indian scientists currently working in the US. Formation of JIABA will allow to interact and collaborate with the Indian scientists working in India. I am looking forward to it.”

Says Zoran Obradovic, professor and director, Center for Information Science and Technology, Temple University, USA: “The proposed collaboration is well planned and I hope that its projects will demonstrate clear benefits of such a research experience to all participants in both India as well as in the US. I wish it all the best and look forward to its smooth implementation in both countries.”

CEDKA is a public trust that works towards enhancing knowledge, awareness and research of the advanced technologies in the fields of bioinformatics, genomics and molecular biology, among others. It works for various sections of society, including professionals, scientists, students and the general public. The board of advisors of the organisation includes members from Washington State University, Institute of Genome Research, Indian Institute of Science, University of Newcastle, ETH Zurich, and others.

The organisation has an active support of national and international government agencies, leading educational institutions, scientists and research organisations. The activities by the organisation include visits by national and international personalities from various fields, seminars, lectures, shows, conferences and training.

BRC () is an internationally recognised bioinformatics research centre providing expertise in computational methods, algorithm development and mathematical modelling of complex biological genetic mechanisms and data. Applications created at BRC are allowing scientists to perform advanced ‘virtual experiments’ not possible in the wet-lab. The scientists from all over the world use the cutting-edge tools developed at BRC to delve into the new fields being created by the post-genomic revolution.

BRC provides a wide spectrum of educational and training programmes in bioinformatics and participates in the master’s programme in bioinformatics offered by Marquette University. It hosts the Rat Genome Database (), a model organism database integrating rat genetic and genomic data.

  also see : www.rgd.mcw.edu
www.brc.mcw.edu