"Only highly specialized personnel in niche areas will be in great demand"

Dr Rajendra Joshi, Coordinator, Bioinformatics Group, Center for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Pune

The definition of the term bioinformatics itself is highly debated. If one looks at it from the molecular perspective, then Mark Gernstein's definition is probably well suited. It is defined as "Bioinformatics is conceptualizing biology in terms of molecules (in the sense of physical chemistry) and then applying 'informatics' techniques (derived from disciplines such as applied mathematics, computer sciences and statistics) to understand and organize the information associated with these molecules on a large scale".

Bioinformatics as a subject did exist in the early Eighties, but came into the limelight after the completion of the human genome-sequencing project along with the other genome projects. Most of the times a comparison is made between bioinformatics and information technology. There is a common misconception amongst people, where it is felt that bioinformatics is stream of information technology. The fact is that bioinformatics is a branch of biological sciences, which is still an evolving science where many of the methods and algorithms for biological analysis are still being researched. It is always puzzling for the student community to find out how they can contribute in this area. Students from varied backgrounds are entering into the bioinformatics domain and their role can differ depending on their educational background and expertise.

Classification

The activities in bioinformatics can broadly divided into three categories namely basic research, algorithm development, and software development. Basic research leads to knowledge about the biological system, which can be represented into a mathematical or statistical form leading to new algorithms. Based on such novel algorithms, new software tools can be developed which can be used for analysis of other biological systems.

Basic research

In academics, basic research is more of a long-term research activity with no immediate returns. Working in such long-term research projects often requires one to super specialize into one of the streams of bioinformatics. In the industry, basic research can play an important role in executing contract research projects. However, it must be noted that the concept of outsourcing in the biotech/bioinformatics industry is not easy. This is primarily because of issues pertaining to IPR and patents. Industries in the area of contract research have to take up confidence building exercises with their clients, in order to succeed.

Algorithm development

The second field is that of algorithm development. In this field a person having a background of Master's degree in mathematics, statistics, biophysics and algorithms, can contribute effectively. Such a field has an important role in academics, whereby the novel methods or techniques can be applied to long-term research projects. The persons from such background often need to work along with biologists to develop an algorithm to solve a particular problem in biology. However, being a difficult field, not many groups in India are working on new algorithm design.

Software development

The third field is that of software development related to bioinformatics, where students mainly from the computer science and information technology background play an important role. Such a software development activity usually finds importance in the industries that are building software for some specific clients. Most of the times people working on such projects have to work along with biologists to understand the problem and translate it into the software solution that needs to be developed. However, not many novel tools with new algorithms have been developed. Many of the efforts are simply towards repackaging the existing tools by giving user friendly GUIs. Further since the user segment is very small, it is difficult to market such tools.

Scope of bioinformatics

Bioinformatics has tremendous scope abroad both in academia and industry. However, it is important to note that only highly specialized personnel in niche areas will be in great demand. Bioinformatics as a subject can play a very important role in genome based drug discovery. Pharma companies can save millions of dollars and years of efforts in discovering new molecules. The number of such industries carrying out extensive research and development in genome based drug discovery needs be to significantly high in India. This will enable bioinformatics domain to gain more importance and create more opportunities in India.

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