Centre for Bioinformatics, Pondicherry University

The Centre for Bioinformatics in Pondicherry University was started as Sub Distributed Information Centre of the Department
of Biotechnology, Govt. of India (DBT) in 1991. The mandate of the Centre is to train manpower and conduct research in various
areas of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. Recognizing the progress made by the Centre, DBT upgraded the Centre to
a full Centre level in 2002 and several new positions were sanctioned and additional funding was allocated.

The Centre is identified as a Centre of Excellence for Research and Training in the field of Bioinformatics by the Department of
Information Technology, Govt. of India, New Delhi from 2007 to 2013 and awarded a special grant of ` 3.69 crores. The Centre
has taken up several research projects and has offered modular courses in Bioinformatics under this Grant.

The Centre started a M.Sc., program in Bioinformatics in 2007 supported by the University Grants Commission (UGC) under
the scheme of “Innovative Programme - Teaching & Research in Interdisciplinary and Emerging Areas”. For advanced research in
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, the Centre started Ph.D. Programme in 2009. The Centre also received UGC Special
Assistance Program (SAP) at the DRS-I level in 2012.The Centre for Bioinformatics has received a grant of ` 1 crore under DSTFIST
program for procuring sophisticated equipment.
The Centre started an innovative M.Sc. program in Computational Biology fully funded by DBT in a network mode with Madurai
Kamaraj University, Madurai and Anna University, Chennai in 2010. This programme is first of its kind in the country and
upgraded to M.Tech program in Computational Biology from 2014 in collaboration with Anna University, Chennai. The Centre
has also signed an MoU with Institute of Bioinformatics (IoB), Bangalore for collaborative research and Ph.D. guidance. The
Ph.D. students can visit these labs for collaborative research and the details are available at www.bicpu.edu.in.
All students, research scholars and faculty are provided round-the-clock computing facility. The Centre has established a separate
wet lab facility with sophisticated equipments.

Most of the past students have been placed in various leading research institutions
and industries.

Over the past few years, the Centre has taken up research activities in the areas of molecular evolution, systems biology, molecular
modeling, structural biology, database development etc., and several papers have been published in highly reputed International
and National Journals. The faculty and students have received projects/fellowships from various funding agencies like Department
of Biotechnology, Department of Information Technology, University Grants Commission, Council of Scientific and Industrial
Research-JRF/SRF, Department of Science and Technology, Bioinformatics National Certificate (BINC), DST-Innovation in
Science pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) and Rajiv Gandhi Fellowship.

The University has provided a new state-of-the art building for our Centre.