Recepción Final

Proposed activities for 2013-14

 Research work in different aspects of Bioinformatics to Ph.D/ M. Sc students in the department.

 Short term trainings or workshops and long term training/project work on Bioinformatics.

Contact details:

Name of the Coordinator Dr S V Bhardwaj

Postal Address Professor and Head, Department of Biotechnology, and Coordinator, SubDIC, Dr Y S

Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan HP. 173230

Phone Number 01792-252639

Fax No. 01792-252844

Email [email protected]; [email protected]

Website www.yspuniversity.ac.in

G. B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar

Coordinator: Dr. AK Gupta

Summary of the progress made by the centre from its inception

Bioinformatics Sub-DIC was established in November 1998 in the College of Basic Sciences & Humanities, G. B. Pant University of agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar. This is one of the first Sub-DIC in Uttarakhand. Since inception, centre is actively involved in teaching and conducting research in bioinformatics. The bioinformatics education to the students is disseminated through theoretical and practical courses in Bioinformatics. Every year, the Bioinformatics courses- “Elements of Bioinformatics” and “Use of computers in molecular modeling” are being offered by the centre to the PG students of various disciplines including Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Biophysics, Plant Physiology, Plant Breeding and Genetics. Every year more than 60 students enthusiastically enroll and successfully complete these courses. Other than the teaching of university’s students, centre also actively disseminates bioinformatics knowledge to students, researchers and academi- cians of other universities by conducting on-hand training and organizing workshops both on wide and specific areas of Bioinformatics and System Biology with special reference to the applications in Agricultural Biotechnology. These work- shops had always attracted numerous applicants for participation from various parts of the country.

Major activities of the centre during the year 2012-13.

A. Teaching: As per BMSA guidelines of ICAR, the bioinformatics course for PG students has been revised in the form

of “Introduction to Bioinformatics” from the session 2010-11. Understanding the immense importance of bioinformatics in the post-genomic era, Two new courses entitled ”Bioinformatics and molecular modeling” and “Biocomputing

and System Biology” have been included in the course curriculum of the newly started B-Tech biotech programme

and being offered from the academic year 2010-2011 to the B-Tech Biotech students to scintillate the young students to the most challenging areas of bioinformatics and allow them to venture in the Bio-IT sectors.

B. Research: Recently, to view deeper insights to understand MAPK signaling in plants newer techniques like Machine

learning tool has been included in the ongoing study. The efforts here also been made to develop a ‘MAP Kinase analyzer’ tool for identification of phosphorylation sites in various interacting MAP kinase partners, In addition to develop ‘Phyto Diab Care’ database of antidiabetic plants and Phyto MAPK DB a Plant MAPK Interactome Database. Different in silico approaches have been performed to understand the molecular basis of high calcium in developing grains through in silico analysis of genome wide distribution and expression of calcium related genes involved in calcium signaling and transport and also investigate the role of plant specific transcription factors like Dof1, PBF-Dof in regulating the nitrogen use efficiency and stress responsiveness in finger millet. The focused attempts towards proving finger millet as nutraceutical crop through bioinformatics tools are also underway. Working on different aspects of bioinformatics, in 2012, a total of 5 research papers have been published in reputed international journals and many research papers are under preparation review.

C. Hardware, Sofware and Data analysis support: Since, centre has been continuously expanding the activities in

teaching, training and research in bioinformatics and hence there is continuous need of more infra-structure facilities. To meet the growing requirements of the centre, seven new high performance personnel computers, one Sony LCD TV, Online UPS along with commercial softwares like MOE (Molecular Operating Environment) one year licence, E-Scan antivirus, Wingate Proxy server for 50 users of one year licence were purchased. Beside, centre is striving to provide internet connectivity through Wi-Fi system to all the faculty members of college from this year. The centre has acquired state of the art bioinformatics packages such as DNA STAR, GCG Package, MOE, Hyperchem, Genocluster, Sigma Plot and Sigma Stat which provides data analysis facility for the on-going research in area of Biotechnology.

D. Training/Workshops: The center in 2012 conducted a 4 day workshop on the topic “Functional Genomics & System

Biology in Agriculture” from Sept 15th _{to 18th, 2012. The workshop attracted more than 80 participants from various}

universities/institutes of our country. For this workshop, on-hand practicals and lectures were organized by eminent scientists like Dr. G.P.S. Raghava from IMTECH Chandigarh, Dr. Vikrant Gupta from CIMAP, Lucknow, Dr. Naveen Bisht from NIPGR New Delhi, Dr. Sanjay Kapoor of Delhi University South Campus, of our country who have in-depth knowledge of theoretical concepts of bioinformatics and computational biology as well as wide knowledge of various bioinformatics and system biology tools, In addition to this Bioinformatics facility is also being utilized for the

organization of 21 days “ National Training Workshop on Application of Genomics in Crop Improvement” from 27th

Dec 2012-16th _{Jan 2013. Apart from teaching and organizing theme-specific workshops, centre is helping the students}

of other disciplines for successful conducting and analyzing their research experiments, the centre also imparts short duration training to students of other universities who applied for their project/thesis dissertations every year. In year 2012, one student each from Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University, Kanpur and Banasthali University, Jaipur successfully completed their dissertation. Their work in the form research papers is under preparation for publication in reputed international journals.

Proposed Activities of the Centre in 2013-2014

 Teaching: Development of advanced teaching modules on various areas of bioinformatics and are now under

progress which is aimed to provide most recent and in depth knowledge to the students and academicians of the university.

 Research: The centre has identified some frontier areas of applications of bioinformatics in agriculture which

would be main focus of research in the future. These areas are, elucidation of molecular and regulatory networks of complex traits like nitrogen use efficiency, biofortification, mineral nutrition through system biology ap- proaches beside the complexity of polygenic traits of biotic and abiotic stresses which would be explored and understood through in silico experiments.

 Parallel to the research activities the centre has also planned to develop and expand its website where all the activities of the centre would be displayed.

 In 2013, the centre plans to organize two event entitled “Brainstorming session on Prioritizing research area

in Nano-Bio-Information Technology for the development Hill States” (April 2013), and National Training

Workshop entitled “Molecular docking and simulation for identification of molecules for agricultural and

veterinary applications” (14th _-17th _{Sept 2013) in order to train the mid career faculty/scientists, research}

scholars and students to the emerging areas of bioinformatics and Molecular docking, simulation that has potential applications in improving agriculture.

 Creation of tools and databases: The development of two novel databases named as “Seed Pro Nutra Care”

database for providing functional attributes of seed specific proteins and “TRIPATH” database for providing the genetic and genomic resources of three important fungal pathogens (Rust, Smut and Bunt) of Wheat is under progress. A database named ‘Himalayan Agri Bioresource Informatics System’ would be developed that will contain and cover the bioresource potential of Uttarakhand like underutilized ethnic grains of Uttarakhand, microbial diversity resourse medicinal plants, mushrooms, fresh water fishes, cattles.

 Organization of meeting of Coordinators of Bioinformatics Centres located in Himalayan states: In order to

consolidate the efforts of Bioinformatics Centres running by the financial assistance of the DBT, there is need to organize a Coordinators meeting for defining the programmes pertaining to the development of Himalayan states and avoiding the duplicated efforts in documentation of Himalayan resources and harnessing their potential for generation of new knowledge, processes and products through both in silico and wet experimentation.