India was the first country
to conceptualise and establish, during 1986-87, a national
distributed Bioinformatics network, which is now the largest
in the world. Even as the term 'Bioinformatics' was just
coined, the Department of Biotechnology took a bold step
in initiating the Biotechnology Information System Network
(BTISNet). To start with in 1986- 87 nine institutions
were identified for initiating the distributed information
centres and they accepted the challenge then of using
computers in the Life Sciences. In fact, this initiative
was with the personal intervention and support of the
former Hon'ble Prime Minister RajivGandhi. Dr. S. Ramachandran,
Founder Secretary of DBT, laid the foundation for BTIS
in the country during the Seventh Five Year Plan and,
of course, the present system of Bioinformatics network
is the result of his vision. Subsequently, the then
Secretaries Dr. C.R. Bhatia and Dr. Manju Sharma have
extended all their support for the further growth of
the network. From just a small number of Centres in
the Seventh Plan it went up to 70 Centres during Eighth
and Ninth Plan Period. Dr. M.K. Bhan, the present Secretary,
DBT, brought a new dimension by bringing the hard core
biologists as part of the BTISnet. In fact, during this
period a major expansion of this network was undertaken
which has reached to 160 Bioinformatics Centres spread
across the country. Dr. Ramachandran has been much admired
for his vision that has led to the growth of the present
BTISnet and its emergence as a major scientific network
in the country.
Dr. N. Seshagiri, the Founder Director General of National
Informatics Centre (NIC) was the first Chairman of the
Bioinformatics Task Force who had extensively supported
the establishment of satellite communication system
for the BTISnet Centres. Prof. K. Dharmalingam, Madurai
Kamaraj University, Madurai and Prof. A.S. Kolaskar,
University of Pune and presently the Vice Chancellor
of KIIT, Bhubaneswar, were the second and third Chairpersons
of the Task Force. They stressed the scientific activities
in the Bioinformatics centres and helped in initiation
of more than 100 R&D projects in the areas of Bioinformatics
and Computational Biology. From the year 2006 onwards,
Prof. M. Vijayan, IISc. Bangalore, was chairing the
Bioinformatics Task Force after Prof. A.S. Kolaskar.
Prof. Vijayan contributed in consolidation of Bioinformatics
outcomes in the country like Bioinformatics research
publications from India and integration of computational
biology as part of Bioinformatics. In the year 2009,
the Bioinformatics Task Force was revised as Task Force
on Bioinformatics, Computational and Systems Biology
which is being chaired by Prof. M. Vijayan. The Members
of the Task Force have over the years been drawn from
a wide range of organisations like Universities, CSIR,
ICAR, ICMR, National Institutes, Inter Ministerial and
Industry. Their contributions for the growth of Bioinformatics
is remarkable.
My predecessors in this area Dr. J. R. Arora, Former
Adviser, DBT, Shri S.L. Bhat, Shri U.N. Behera, Former
Joint Secretaries of DBT have contributed at different
stages in pushing the Bioinformatics activities in the
country and their contributions are unforgettable. My
team members in DBT have worked hard to take the network
across the country. Bioinformatics policy of India was
also drafted in this period and later on the policy
matters were combined as part of biotechnology strategy.
In this auspicious occasion of 25 years of India's
BTISnet, I am quite happy to highlight the present status
of BTISnet so as to help in planning future course of
developments in this field.
The seed of this network has grown like a banyan tree
over the years with varied activities. The present situation
of awareness, expertise available in the country in
this field is because of this initiation and one can
visualise the role played by the bioinformatics in making
life scientists becoming active users of computers in
their research and teaching. Until now 160 institutions
of different organisations ranging from Universities,
CSIR, ICAR, ICMR, DST, DBT institutions, National Institutes,
IISc. and many IITs are part of the network. The Centres
are of different levels namely COEs, DICs, Sub-DICs
and BIF for BTBI. Initially the network was aimed to
create a strong Bioinformatics infrastructure in the
country, and this has been indeed fulfilled more than
as expected. Secondly, the focus was to develop and
generate skilled personnel in the interdisciplinary
area of bioinformatics. This was infact a great struggle,
as two far apart areas of Computer Sciences and Life
Sciences were brought together for developing a new
field Bioinformatics. Up to some extent this has been
achieved and the results can be seen in Bioinformatics
papers published in peer reviewed journals from India
and quality of trained personnel available in the subject
area. DBT evolved and published for the first time a
syllabus for teaching bioinformatics in the year 2002,
which has then been improved over the years. The Advanced
Diploma Courses in Bioinformatics and subsequently their
up-gradation as MSc. M. Tech and PhDs have helped the
bioinformatics community. Still, we do not have many
PhDs in this area. The deficit was there in Computer
Science, as well, in 1980s and even 1990s. Now a fair
number of PhDs are there in Computer
Science. A similar situation is expected to happen in
Bioinformatics as well during the current decade.
Since inception the network centres were fortunate
to have state of art computer and communication systems.
Satellite communication network was established for
BTISnet by providing VSATs and subsequently high speed
and large bandwidth network in the form of VPN as Bio-Grid
India. The present National Knowledge Network (NKN)
concept was earlier used for Bio Grid India with 12
institutions and subsequently all the BTISnet Centres
were brought under this Grid by extending a minimum
of 2 Mbps Network Internet connectivity. The VPN helped
in accessing major computer servers in the country and
databases. Several international databases like EMBL,
EBI, PDB, GDB have been mirrored as part of VPN for
value added services and unhindered access to these
resources by the researchers. Major interactive graphic
facilities are also part of this network to take care
of national requirements. Super Computer facility for
Bioinformatics has been established at IIT, Delhi also
as part of the VPN.
While concentrating on Research and Human Resource
Development (HRD), a thought emerged on why Bioinformatics
cannot be engaged in promoting Life Sciences teaching.
Keeping this in view, a new scheme was introduced in
the 11th five year Plan namely Bioinformatics facility
(BIF) for Biology Teaching through Bio Informatics (BTBI)
(BIF for BTBI). So far, more than 90 such facilities
have been established and continue their further growth
along with recurring cost every year. The students,
research scholars, teachers are the great beneficiaries
of these facilities in understanding complicated biological
process and phenomena with the support of Bioinformatics
tools and data resources. Various remote
institutions/Universities, women's colleges were given
preferences for the establishment of BIFs. A large number
of molecular biologists have been brought to BTISnet
through this scheme. Several peer reviewed research
papers have been published with bioinformatics as a
major component by these centres.
A few consortium based projects have also been evolved
and are being implemented in bioinformatics which includes
Tuberculosis Bioinformatics (TBBI), Rice Bioinformatics
(RBI), Mango database etc. The major institutions that
are engaged in these areas are part of the consortium
projects. Published and unpublished information, primary
data, secondary data all are being made available as
national databases. A major drawback of nonavailability
of primary data for further research and analysis might
be resolved through these efforts. Bioinformatics researchers
particularly would be able to obtain the primary data
through this approach which would encourage conceptualised
research in the country.
During the visit of Hon'ble Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan
Singh to Japan in December 2006, it was agreed to set
up a consultation mechanism to facilitate bilateral
high technology trade in this area and addressed the
matters relating to respective export control systems
of the two countries. A joint statement on this effect
was signed on 15th December 2006, by the Prime Ministers
of India and Japan. With this effect, both the countries
have made quite impressive progress in the area of Biotechnology
involving the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), India
and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science
and Technology (AIST), Japan. Until now eight important
joint projects have been evolved and implemented
in the areas of Bioinformatics and Cell Engineering.
Larger institutions of this network are greatly benefited
in doing hard core research and high end human resource
developments. Whereas the small institutions have improved
their strength in this area by establishing a Bioinformatics
set up and a communication network. Access to data resources,
outreach of information are quite easy now even for
the remote institutions because of BTISnet. Over 100
subject specific databases have been developed and 50
software packages are on BTISnet as open access resources.
Efforts are on to integrate the related databases as
a single source to achieve a comprehensive data source
for a particular subject area. More than 3000 peer reviewed
publications have been published in last 5 years from
India in the subject area. These are either completely
bioinformatics publications or
have a combination of bioinformatics and experimental
biology. However considering only papers having 50%
and above bioinformatics contributions a Compendium
of Bioinformatics Publications from India is being compiled
and will be published shortly. This will help assess
the impact made by bioinformatics in the growth of biotechnology
in India. On an average 40-50 R&D projects are supported
every year and these have also contributed publications
in high impact journals.
Twenty six Bioinformatics Centres are functioning in
North Eastern Region of India and these have been networked
as North Eastern Bioinformatics Network (NEBInet). These
institutions are quite active in pursuing biotechnology
with the support of bioinformatics. More than 900 important
e-Journals of Biotechnology are available through NEBInet
for access to the researchers, students, teachers etc.
of this region. The service is known as North East Region-DBT
e-Library Consortium (NER-DeLCON). Annual coordinators
meeting of NEBInet is being held on 12-13th November
of every year. NEHU, Shillong is the Coordinating Institute
for this network. NEBInet is also instrumental in implementing
several biotechnology programmes in NER such as Biotech
Hubs, Overseas Associateship, Twining R&D project
and so on.
DBT would continue its support in future for the BTISnet
as it has shown excellent progress and will help in
utilising the expertise acquired through these years
for the study of biological process. Moreover, it will
help enhance the overall biotechnology growth in the
country. Data driven research is going to revolutionise
biological research, and planning is in progress for
strengthening the infrastructure and pooling of expertise
towards this purpose. Inter Ministerial and International
cooperation would be part of this effort.
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