MADRAS VETERINARY COLLEGE

BIOINFORMATICS CENTRE

Genesis

India has endeavoured to create an infrastructure that could enable to harness Biotechnology through the application of Bioinformatics. The Government of India took a major step in establishing a national grid of Bioinformatics Centres as the BTISNET (Biotechnology Information Network) during 1986-87. The BTIS programme of DBT was launched during the 7th year plan to harness the scientific knowledge in various inter disciplinary areas of Biotechnology.

Madras Veterinary College at TANUVAS has been identified as one of the nodes in BTIS Network which was established during 1990-91 to cater the needs of scientists of Veterinary, Animal and Fishery Sciences in the field of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology.
Now the Centre is functioning as a Unit of Madras Veterinary College, TANUVAS and the Centre has emerged as a very sophisticated scientific infrastructure for Bioinformatics involving state-of-the art computational and communication facilities.

Objectives

To conduct training programmes in various areas of Bioinformatics for the faculties, scientists, research scholars of the University / other universities / institutions / industries and one day training programme on Information Retrieval System for Post Graduate students of Madras Veterinary College
To provide technical guidance on Bioinformatics tools and techniques to the internal / external student’s projects in Bioinformatics
To provide Bioinformatics Lab services - Molecular docking, Virtual screening, Pathway analysis, Primer designing, sequence analysis, etc. to the faculties, scientists, research scholars of our university at free of cost and on cost basis to other institutions.
To develop databases and web portals
To provide online / offline literature / information retrieval services on cost basis
To establish tie up with other institutions for collaborative projects in Bioinformatics

Course Offered

The Bioinformatics Centre offers the following PG degree / PG Diploma courses:

M.Sc. Bioinformatics: Regular mode (two years)
PG Diploma in Bioinformatics: Distance mode (one year)

Research

Completed Research Projects

S. No.	Title	Funding agency	Period	Total outlay (Rs. in Lakhs)
1	Biotechnology Information System (BTIS)	DBT, Govt. of India	07.08.1990 - 30.06.2020	270.42
2	Agricultural Research Information System (ARIS) Cell	ICAR, New Delhi	03.01.1999 - 28.10.2016	131.28
3	National Information System for Agricultural Education Network in India (NISAGENET)	ICAR, New Delhi	01.01.2005 - 28.10.2016	15.47

Ongoing Research Project

TNSCST Scheme on“In silico informatics on potential novel inhibitors of plant origin for mycobacterial infections”(2021-2023).

Infrastructure facilities

In silico Lab

Hardware: High End Rack server with Intel Xeon Gold dual processors (20 cores), Windows Server 2019 is available to process the high volume of Genomic and Biological data. IBM servers available in the Centre provide hosting service of web applications. Tyrone work station with the Linux platform is used to run the Gromacs simulation software. Desktop computers (i5/i3/dual core) inter connected through Network switches withinternet facilities in carrying out student projects and conducting HRD programmes in the field of Bioinformatics.
Software: DNASTAR Lasergene Suite (Version 17.1) is appliedfor molecular cloning, primer design, Next-Gen sequencing, multiple sequence alignments and transcriptome. The Advanced Bioinformatics Software - Discovery Studio 2020 - provides services in the fields of Molecular Interaction,Structure based Drug Designing, Molecular Dynamics, Simulation Study, Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Analysis. In addition, the other Bioinformatics software like Genious Pro, GromacsBiosuite, Discovery Studio 4.5 and freewaresare also available to cater the needs of applications in bioinformatics.

Wet lab

Wet Lab facility has been established during 2005-2006. The Laboratory is equipped with Laminar Airflow,PCR Thermal Cycler, Gel Electrophoresis, Digital Electronic Balance, UV-Transilluminator, Microwave Oven, Hot Plate, Water Bath, Vortex Machine, High-speed centrifuge, Autoclave, etc,. The wet lab is being utilized for microbial and eukaryotic genomics work flow, starting from genome isolation, amplification to PCR/cloning.

Services Offered

Human Resource Development (HRD) Programmes

Training cum Workshop on “Information Retrieval System” is being conducted every yearby the Bioinformatics Centre for the benefit of P.G. Students from inception. National level Training cum Workshops are beingconducted regularly in the topics of Application of Bioinformatics in Animal Sciences, Computer Aided Drug Designing, Genomic and Proteomic Analysis, in silico Molecular Modelling and Drug Designing, Vetinformatics, Application of Bioinformatics Tools in Next Generation Sequencing data and Variant Analysis, Molecular Interaction, etc, for the benefit of Faculties, Scientists, Research Scholars and Students.
Totally 112 Human Resource Development programmes were conducted from the inception of the Bioinformatics Centre, in which 2611 Faculties/Scientists/Research Scholars/Students were benefited by these HRD programmes.

Bioinformatics Services

The Bioinformatics Centre provides adequate infrastructure facilities to carry out the educational and industrial based Bioinformatics services to other institutions / Pharmaceutical industries like Receptor and ligand structure analysis for known and unknown data samples, Molecular docking, Virtual screening, Network Pharmacology, Pathway analysis, Phytogenic analysis and QSAR, Primer Design, Microarray Data Analysis, etc.

Information Retrieval Service

The scientific information is being retrieved from online databases like PUBMED and PUBMED CENTRAL of NCBI, ERIC and other bibliographic databases. Many post graduate students, research scholars and faculties of TANUVAS and other Universities are being benefited by this service.
Further, Information is also being retrieved from CDROM based offline databases such as Veterinary Science Database, Animal Production Database, Aquatic Science and Fisheries Abstracts, Biotechnology abstracts, Food Science and Technology abstracts and Education resource database (ERIC) and disseminated to scientists and research scholars of TANUVAS and others.

External Student Guidance

The Project guidance is being offered to the students (External and internal) for their Research/Projects by utilizing the infrastructure and facilities available at the Centre.

Molecular interactions, including interaction of biological target proteins with ligands (mainlyof plant origin).
Genomics analysis, such as phylogenetic relations, pathogen evolution, comparativegenomics, etc.
Biochemical pathway analysis
Computational microarray analysis
Database designing using bioinformatics analysis data
Virtual screening
Molecular modelling and evaluation
In-silico pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies and Simulation studies etc.,
185 student projects have been completed so farfrom the inception of the Centre.

Thrust areas

The major thrust of the Centre at Madras Veterinary College is to deal with the recent developments in the field of Bioinformatics in Veterinary and Fisheries Sciences in addition to educational activities, conduct of training/workshop programmes, creation of databases and related applications, providing bioinformatics consultancy services, etc.

Faculty

Dr. P. Devendran, Professor and Head
Dr. K. Anbu Kumar, Assistant Professor

The Professor and Head,
Bioinformatics Centre,
Madras Veterinary College, Chennai – 600 007.
Phone: +91-44-25304000
E-mail: hodbitmvc@tanuvas.org.in