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Bioinformatics,
the science of developing computer databases and algorithms
to facilitate and expedite biological research, has come on
as the next big opportunity for the Indian software industry.
The latest player in the Indian bioinformatics market is the
country’s largest information technology company, Tata Consultancy
Services (TCS).
Based at the company’s
Advanced Technology Centre (ATC) in Hyderabad and headed by
Dr M. Vidyasagar, executive vice-president, TCS, the bioinformatics
practice will enable TCS to provide services such as automated
genome analysis, protein structure prediction and high throughput
molecular modelling, rational drug design, and creation and
integration of relational databases from proprietary, unstructured
pharmaceutical and clinical data.
Other services
that the ATC is gearing up to provide include the following:
- Development
of customised software for pharmaceutical, biomedical and
biotechnology companies;
- Analysis
of the results of various biological experiments in genomics
and proteomics;
- Searchable
and user-friendly databases;
- Prediction
of gene function, protein-protein interaction;
- Customised
crystal structure solutions.
TCS has, for this venture,
entered into a collaborative research agreement with the Centre
for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), a research
and development laboratory under the Indian government’s Department
of Biotechnology.
Under the agreement,
CDFD, with its expertise in computational biology and modern
recombinant DNA techniques, will train personnel in biology,
while TCS will train them in IT. The first batch of 20 recruits
for this initiative was culled from a field of over 2,000
applicants.
The company’s first priority,
according to Dr Vidyasagar, is to train the new recruits in
both biosciences and IT for about nine months, and transform
them into ‘billable’ employees. “It will take at least another
year for things to evolve fully,” he says.
For now the entry into
bioinformatics reflects the company’s strategy to gain early-mover
advantage, just as it did in the software industry back in
the 1960s.
Netscribes / Ganesh
Ramamoorthy
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