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University of Kashmir, Hazratbal, Srinagar, J&K
Coordinator : Prof. K. I. Andrabi
Summary of the progress made by the center from its inception
· The Center has developed software packages like INSUSENZ (for computing Peripheral Insulin sensitivity using OGTT data) and an application LIBSOFT (for library automation).
· Developed a database on “Medicinal & Aromatic Plants” of J&K State. The database is available on our website www.bioinfoku.org
· Successfully conducted seven national level workshops.
· Has its own VSAT (SCPC) with 1 Mbps bandwidth for Internet connectivity.
· Has been providing services to various Institutes of the valley and Science departments of the University campus.
· Has acquired several Software packages related to biosciences and the research scholars from Biosciences field are getting benefited from these packages.
· Has started one-year (two semesters) PG diploma in Bioinformatics course.
Major research activities in Biotechnology and its related fields at your institution
· Sequence variations in disease related genes and its relationship with ethnicity
· Molecular evaluation of oxidative stress as a marker for disease.
· Potential of medicinal herbs to harbour signal transduction modulators.
Area of Specialization of the Centre:
Polymorphism studies in pure ethnic population [Kashmir].
Major activities of the center during the year 2006-07
· One of the faculty member of Department of Biotechnology, has been deputed for six months training in Bioinformatics at IBI Solutions Chandigarh
· Successfully organized a National level workshops held on “Introduction to Genomics and Proteomics” in March 2007.
· The Centre arranged series of online lectures related to Bioinformatics for P.G. students of Department of Biotechnology, Kashmir University, wherein faculty of Bioinformatics Centre, JNU, New Delhi were roped in.
· The center procured Sun Fire X2100 compute server on which BLAST,FASTA,CLUSTALW have been locally installed .This is a step towards building a full BIOX package(Integrated bioinformatics software & hardware solution)
· Procured CLC Combined Workbench, a package enabling users to make a large number of advanced proteins, DNA, and RNA sequence analyses, combined with smooth data management, and excellent graphical viewing and output options.
Infrastructure facilities in the Bioinformatics Center
A. Computer & Communication facility
a) The Center has its own VSAT (SCPC) with I Mbps bandwidth from Ernet.
b) Has Pentium D desktop with TFT monitors equipped computer lab.
c) IBM Xeon Server Core Duo and SUN Fire X2100 compute node
B. Scientific Software packages
a) Properties of Organic Compounds Ver.6.0
b) InStat
c) ChemSW
d) EnzFitter
e) Sigma Plot graph library
f) GraFit Ver. 5.0
g) Softwares available online
C. Databases & other information resources
a) The center recently procured Sun Fire X2100 compute server on which BLAST,FASTA,CLUSTALW have been locally installed. This is a step towards building a full BIOX package(Integrated bioinformatics software & hardware solution)
b) CLC Combined Workbench.
c) Current Content Databases
d) Agriculture, Environmental Sciences and Biology.
e) Life Sciences.
Types of services provided
· Literature browsing and web data mining for all research scholars of the university.
· Computational lab facility for post-graduate students, research scholars and faculty of the science departments in general and biotechnology in particular.
· Project training pertaining to Bioinformatics tools, databases, data access and data mining.
· Access to BIOX grid package (integrated software/hardware solution from SUN Microsystems) for Molecular Biology.
Educational activities with details of placement
· The center in addition to “PG Diploma in Bioinformatics” is offering research-based activities to scholars/P.G Students of Science Faculty. Of late research scholars of Department of Biotechnology, University of Kashmir has been provided with the access to BIOX software package (BLAST, FASTA, CLUSTALW AND VARIOUS MOLECULAR MODELLING TOOLS).
· The centre annually conducts national workshops and till date about 140-160 personnel have been trained in various fields viz; computational biology, Proteomics, Genomics and web based Bioinformatics tools
Collaborative works/ initiatives
· Centre collaborates with the department of biotechnology to provide facility for one of the computational courses in M.Sc Biotech programme.
· Centre ha entered into s collaboration with a U.S based software company BQE Inc. to explore the possibility of developing user-friendly data mining software.
Databases/ Software packages developed
· The Center has developed a database on ' Medicinal & Aromatic Plants of J&K'. The database has a GUI based Interface with Visual Basic as its front end. Complete information on more than 133 plants has already been collected. The information consists of folklore medicinal uses, chemistry, medicinal uses, botany, geographical distribution etc. A web-enabled Interface of the Database has also been developed and has been made online on the centers website..
· A software program 'INSUSENZ' for computing the peripheral insulin sensitivity from oral glucose tolerance test data has been developed.
· Web enabled interface of “Medicinal & Aromatic Plants in J&k” has been developed using Java server pages (JSP) technology on Macromedia Jrun4 Server and is available on intranet.
Papers published or presented in the conferences with reference
Research Papers published in peer reviewed journals by using Bioinformatics Support
· Ishfaq Ahmed, Rohina Jan,,Riyaz A Pandit ,Tariq Qureshi & Khurshid Andrabi, (2007), Exon10 Polymorphism in TGF Beta Gene does not Assxcoaite with High Myopia in Pure Ethnic Pedigrees.Biochemical Genetics (In press).
· Peerzada Kaiser, Chand Raina, Rajinder Parshad,,Sarojini Johri, Vijeshwer Verma,Khurshid I. Andrabik and Ghulam N. Qazi , Protein Expression and Purification , 45(2), 2006, 262-268.
· Mahrukh Hameed, Basir Ahmad, Khalid Majid Fazili, Khurshid Andrabi and Rizwan Hasan Khan, Journal of Biochemistry, 141(4), 2007,573-583.
· Bioinformatics Research Papers Published, in peer Reviewed journal by your centre.
Masood & Mujtaba Shafi, Bioinformation 1(2): 56-57 (2005).
Details of Training/ Workshop organized
Topic Year No. of participants
PC Familiarization & applications 2000 13
Introduction to Bioinformatics & Biostatistics-I 2001 18
Computer fundamentals & Networking 2001 06
Introduction to Bioinformatics & Biostatistics-II 2002 14
Bioinformatics & Internet 2003 17
Internet Resources & Statistics for Biologists 2004 15
Bioinformatics: Computer Methods in Biology 2005 15
Introduction to Genomics and Proteomics 2007 21
Imapct by the centre on the growth of biotechnology
· The centre has been consistently organizing workshops to create awareness about the potential of biotechnology in the state.
· The availability of data analysis facility especially in molecular analysis has prompted many researchers to switch their interests in biotechnology.
· Our collaboration with the researchers of Deptt of Biotechnology has been quite productive yielding data of highest quality.
Contact Person
Prof. K.I. Andrabi
Professor & Head, Department of Biotechnology & Coordinator,
Bioinformatics Center,
The University of Kashmir, Hazratbal,
Srinagar(J&K) -190 006.
Phone Number: 194-2428723 Fax No.: 194-2428723
Email: andrabik@kashmiruniversity.net,
andrabik@yahoo.com
Website: www.bioinfoku.org
Name of Contact Person(s): Prof. K.I. Andrabi
Email: andrabik@kashmiruniversity.net, andrabik@yahoo.com
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