The largest distributed network of bioinformatics centres in the world: Biotechnology Information System Network (DBT-BTISNET)

摘要

The spread of bioinformatics centres across India is primarily due to the extensive infrastructure and network that was initiated way back in 1980s by S. Ramachandran, the first Secretary of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India, and is being supported at 168 locations across the country. Anticipating the dawn of bioinformatics globally as an integration of informatics and biology, the seeds were sown by the linkage set up by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) led by N. Seshagiri (Director General of NIC), in a remarkable collaboration with DBT. As with biotechnology, strong teaching initiatives by DBT at the post-graduate level across the country helped in the growth. The recent bioinformatics certification examinations and the consequent fellowships are part of a seminal exercise that tries to provide standards in an area which saw unregulated mushrooming growth in the last decade.