Importance of bio-informatics stressed

By Our Science Correspondent

BANGALORE, APRIL 16. "People don't seem to understand what a huge opportunity there is in bio-informatics; it is bigger than Y2K," according to Prof. Vijay Chandru of the Indian Institute of Science and one of the founders of a Bangalore-based start-up company.

The "data explosion" facing biologists was simply phenomenal, he said during a talk delivered at the Bangalore Bio.Com here today. So many software tools were required by biologists in order to analyse and make sense of all this data. The volume of business was so large that it created opportunities for many companies.

With modern techniques of molecular biology, not only could crop plants be greatly improved, but plants could also become factories for producing drugs, pointed out Dr. Villoo Morawala- Patell, founder and CEO of Avestha Gengraine Technologies.

Although the time to bring a new product to the market could be over six years, every step along the way created intellectual property and increased value. So if a company did not want to see a product right through to the market, it could still make money by selling or licensing the intellectual property it had created, she pointed out.

Open ended research which would create new ideas was essential for sustaining growth in biotechnology, remarked Prof. K. Vijay Raghavan, Director of the National Centre for Biological Sciences. The funding for such research usually came from the government and from public charities. In India, however, government funding was inadequate, spread too thin, and badly allocated. There were no public charities in the country funding research.

So much of the boom in biotechnology in India would have to depend on other people's ideas and, hence, may not last, he added.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Koujalgi lambasts 'enemies' within party
Next     : Rs. 12,000 cr. for economy restructuring plan