In view of rapidly growing importance of Information Technology in Biotechnology teaching and research, communication etc., Centre for Bioinformatics (a sub-DIC under BTIS programme) at Banasthali University was sanctioned by Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India in November, 1998. Over the last fifteen years, this centre has acquired many databases and software’s and has round the clock Internet connectivity. The Centre has 3 servers, 42 PCs, 2 scanner, 13 printers, 1 LCD projector, 2 IBM & 2 HP Laptops, 4 Web Camera, 2 Digital Camera, 3 External CD/DVD Writers, 2 Photocopier machines, several software and databases. All computers are connected to Internet through 2 MBPS lease line under campus networking. Centre is providing services to the PG students in Biotechnology, Bioscience and Bioinformatics, Ph.D. students and the teaching faculty in the following ways:

• Searching literature/databases of their own research interest
• Computational work
• Application of available software in the centre
• Usage of design databases by the centre

Some of the important databases in Biological Sciences that are currently available are: Medline Standard, Agris, Agricola, Chrome Circle Application, Biotechnology Abstracts and Indian Forester Information System.  To cater to the regional and national needs, the Centre has also developed database on "Biotechnological Industries of Rajasthan", “SSRDatabase of Citrus sinensis,”, “Database for Simple Sequence Repeats of Takifugu rubripus”, “Database of Diterpene Synthase Gene” and "Flora of Indian Desert". “Database of Plant Host-Pathogen Interaction” is in progress. Further, Centre is actively involved in research work in bioinformatics. Various research papers have published in several reputed national and international journals. Since from its inception 7 workshops and training programs has been held in the centre. Around 500 participants from several institutions have been trained including faculty members, research scholars and PG students.

Since from its inception the centre has been coordinated by Prof. Vinay Sharma, Dean, Faculty of Science & Technology, HOD, Dept. of Bioscience and Biotechnology.

• Plant Genomics & Proteomics
• Chloroplast and Mitochondrial Genomics & Proteomics
• Molecular Modeling & Computational Aided Drug Designing

• More Interaction with Bioinformatics Industry
• Continue to Train Human Resources in Bioinformatics
• To cater to the regional and national needs, the work on the specific databases being currently developed by the Center will continue.
• The R & D activities will be strengthened in Bioinformatics.

• Research in the following above mentioned 3 areas is in progress and several research papers have been published.
• Acquired additional infrastructure facilities including hardware’s, software’s and database.
• To provide services for the analysis of biological data, bibliographic references to published literature in science and technology (including databases and patents).
• Training programmes held in Bioinformatics.
• The PG course (M.Tech) in Bioinformatics specialization has been introduced this year; however this is an independent activity of the university.

In the centre of bioinformatics the current research is focused on the following specialized area:

The phylogenetic analysis of plants using organelle genome sequences is an interesting research area to know the evolution of land plants. Therefore research is focused on organelle genome sequences to elucidate plant phylogeny by applying methods including Maximum likelihood and Bayesian analysis used for phylogenetic tree reconstruction. The maximum-likelihood analysis consists of three parts. First a model of evolutionary change for nucleotides or amino acids is specified. Then, based on this model, different hypotheses about the evolutionary history are evaluated in terms of the probability that the hypothesized history would give rise to the observed data. Finally, the hypothesis is selected that shows the highest probability Maximum-likelihood often yields estimates with a lower variance than other methods, and it is frequently the estimation method least affected by sampling error. Bayesian inference in phylogeny generates a posterior distribution for a parameter, composed of a phylogenetic tree and a model of evolution, based on the prior for that parameter and the likelihood of the data, generated by a multiple alignment.

1. The objectives of the research are to the phylogenetic analysis of bryophytes using organelle genome sequences (chloroplast and mitochondrial) from NCBI to know the evolution and tree reconstruction of early land plants.
2. Applying the statistics probability methods including Maximum likelihood and Bayesian analysis for phylogenetic tree reconstruction.

• Objectives of research is focused on phylogeny of mitochondrial genomes, because mitochondrial genome is very diverse in terms of number of genes and also in genome sizes as compared to other organelle genome i.e. chloroplast. The variation is also represented in the form of arrangement pattern of genes in the genome which is in contrast with chloroplast and also with nuclear genome. Trying to justify the patterns behind the whole thing her focus of research is to identify the patterns of mitochondrial genome evolution.
• Further, objective is to analyze the applications and the effect of simple sequence repeat patterns on gene functionality in mitochondrial genomes. SSRs play a major role in proper functionality of genes as well as proteins and can be used to analyze the polymorphism associated with the genes and genomes and can be used as markers.

Primary research focused on to understand the nature and mechanism of molecular recognition and binding free energy determination, further in the development of novel approaches to improve the research and discovery of new molecules and to investigate the intricate relationship between structure and function in biomolecules using in silico tools. By using standard cheminformatics and molecular modeling approaches including Virtual Screening, Pharmacophore mapping, Molecular docking (Protein-ligand, protein-protein, protein-DNA), 3D-QSAR (CoMFA and CoMSIA), Molecular dynamics and Homology and ab initio modeling, Binding Free Energy calculations, Similarity and Diversity Analysis, Structural Descriptors, machine learning methods among others techniques.
In the centre further research is ongoing in the projects including following objectives:

M.Tech Bioinformatics
M.Sc. Bioinformatics
PG Diploma in Bioinformatics

Industry Interactions:
The centre remains in contact with some Bioinformatics firms, viz. Mascon Life Science; MRD Life Sciences; Cadilla Pharmaceuticals; CSRD People’s group, Bhopal; HH BioTechnologies Pvt Ltd etc.  However the interaction needs to be further promoted.