Tamil Nadu

Workshop on bioinformatics for biology teachers

TAMBARAM: A three-day workshop on introduction to bioinformatics to Plus-Two biology teachers concluded at Madras Christian College on Friday.

Arul Samraj, Coordinator of the Centre of BTISnet, (Biotechnology Information System Network of the Department of Biotechnology in the Ministry of Science and Technology), said the declining interest in basic sciences, including biology, and a consequent dip in the number of quality teachers was a cause for concern among academics. Last year too, the college hosted a similar workshop, and the objective was to enlighten biology teachers at the higher secondary level on the various avenues of life sciences and to introduce Bioinformatics.

Further, the workshop was aimed at equipping these teachers to take lessons in Bioinformatics effectively as it was made part of the Plus-Two syllabus and sensitise students to the use of information technology in life sciences. Dr. Arul Samraj said this could help to revive the declining interest among students in basic sciences.

Joyce Priyakumari, Course Director, said the lectures’ topics in the workshop included avenues to life sciences, introduction to bioinformatics and DNA sequencing, biological databases, sequence alignment and analysis, protein structure and visualisation software, molecular drug design and docking and an auto dock demo among others.

Twenty-seven teachers from a dozen government and private schools in the city and the southern suburbs took part in the workshop.

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