A Report on Three-day National Seminar on Emerging Trends and Developments in Bioinformatics 3rd to 5th January 2006 Day 1 (3rd January 06) Inaugural Ceremony: The Three-day National Seminar on Emerging Trends and Developments in Bioinformatics had an auspicious beginning with the Invocation to God by Ms.Poonguzhali and Ms.Vanjinayaki of I M Sc Bioinformatics. Mr. B. Thiagarajan, Coordinator, Dept. of Bioinformatics, Dr.GRDCS gave the welcome address and invited the chief guests and the participants for the three-day seminar. The ceremony was marked by the presence of our Esteemed Correspondent Dr.D.Padmanaban. He gave the Presidential Address. He spoke in general about Biosciences and its relevance to the society. Dr. D Padmanaban congratulated the Department of Bioinformatics for its activities. The Chief Guest for the seminar was Dr.Sushmita Mitra, Professor, Machine Intelligence Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Dr.Mitra gave the Inaugural Address and thanked Dr.GRDCS for giving her an opportunity to be a part of this seminar. The Guest of Honor Prof. Georg Peters, Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, Munich University of Applied Sciences, Munich, Germany. Prof. Peters gave the Special Address and thanked the college for giving him a very warm reception and added that he was ‘addicted’ to the Indian hospitality. Our respected Advisor Prof.A.N. Lakshmanan and our beloved Principal Dr.K.Palaniappan attended the function. They felicitated the gathering and wished the department and the seminar a grand success. Ms.Sara.K.Philip of I M Sc Bioinformatics proposed the vote of thanks for the inaugural function. Session 1 (Forenoon) Technical Session: Title: Computational Aspects in Bioinformatics Speaker: Dr.Sushmita Mitra. Professor, Machine Intelligence Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Dr. Mitra spoke about the computational aspects in Bioinformatics, which included Data mining, computational tools, KDD, nearest neighbor method. Dr.Mitra explained about Classification algorithms, Databases. She stressed on the need for soft computing, Fuzzy sets, Artificial Neural networks, Genetic algorithms, Roulette wheel selection and perception in the field of Bioinformatics. Session 2 (Afternoon) Title: Clustering methods – I & II Speaker: Prof. Georg Peters Dept. of Computer science and Mathematics, Munich University of Applied Sciences, Munich, Germany. Technical Session: Prof. Peters started with an introduction to clustering methods. He spoke about the classification and compared clustering vs. classification. He spoke about the principles of clustering, which explains the arrangement of similar objects in a group. Prof Peters spoke about the necessity to select the best clustering algorithm. The vagueness of clustering was also explained. In conclusion he noted that vagueness is an important criteria for selecting algorithms. Interactive Session: The interactive session saw a plenty of questions posed by the audience to the speakers. The speakers clarified the doubts with perfection. The speakers used various illustrations to make the points clear. The interactive session was both informative and enjoyable. The session was sprinkled with a lot of anecdotes, which helped in explaining the difficult aspects in Bioinformatics. Day 2(4th January 06) Session 3 (Forenoon) Title: Computer Aided Drug Design Structure Based Drug Design Speaker: Dr.G.Narahari Sastry Molecular Modeling Group, Organic Chemical Sciences, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad. Technical Session: Dr. Sastry started the lecture with the Drugs for Diseases. He explained about the methods involved in bringing a potential drug to the market. He spoke about the discovery and development of drugs, which earlier involved a large number of chemists and pharmacists. He pointed out that nowadays chemists look upon biologists as well to solve various complex problems, which arise during drug discovery. Dr. Sastry spoke about the Genomic and In-silico methods of drug discovery. He spoke about the role of Cheminformatics and Bioinformatics in Drug Discovery. He stressed the importance of structure determination, molecular modeling in drug discovery. He concluded with the future of Drug Design. Interactive Session: The interactive session was very vibrant with a number of questions, all of which, Dr.Sastry answered with patience and full of enthusiasm. He was very pleased with the response he received from the students and he was keen to interact with them. Session 4 (Afternoon) Paper Presentation by the Participants The Paper Presentation session saw the active participation and presentation of papers on various diverse topics in the field of Bioinformatics. The following participants presented papers: Mr.Prabhakaran, Ms.A.Mahalakshmi, Ms.A.Shilpa, Ms.K.Subhalakshmi, Ms.G.Vanjinayaki, Mr.B.Vimal, and Ms.Poongothai. Session 5 (Afternoon) Title: Structure Determination Techniques. Speaker: Mr.R.Senthil Kumar, Lecturer, Dept. of Bioinformatics, DR.GRDCS, Coimbatore. Technical Session: Mr. Senthil Kumar spoke about the various structure determination methodologies for determining the 3-D Structure of proteins. He spoke in particular about the X-Ray Crystallography, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance methods. He explained about the theoretical methods, which include Homology Modeling. Interactive Session: This session also saw the active participation from the audience in posing questions and the excellent answers from the speaker. Day 3 (5th January 06) Session 6 (Forenoon) Title: Role of DNA Structure in Promotor Identification – I & II Speaker: Dr. Manju Bansal Professor, Molecular Biophysics Unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Technical Session: Dr. Bansal gave an interesting and lively presentation on ‘Role of DNA structure in Promotor Identification’. She gave a thorough introduction of the Structure of DNA by Watson & Crick, for the benefit of the students from the non-Biology background. She gave an introduction to the Central Dogma of Life as well. Aspects of the Prokaryotic Promotor and the consensus sequence were discussed. She briefed about the complexity of the Eukaryotic organisms, aim of Promotor prediction, recognition in Gene Prediction. The various algorithms, data sets used in Promotor identification were also discussed. She concluded the session by stressing the importance of Promotor Identification in Gene Prediction. Interactive Session: The participants were very keen to ask questions and the speaker was very obliged to answer all the questions. Various questions on publicly available Algorithms, Transcription and RNA Polymerase were put forth by the participants. All the questions were answered with interest and it showed the professionalism of the speaker, towards her field of study. Session 7 (Afternoon) Title: Comparative Genomics Speaker: Dr.K.Mani, Reader, Dept. of Plant Biology and Biotechnology, PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore. Technical Session: Dr. Mani gave a very interesting lecture on the study of Genomes using comparative methods. He explained about the Genome in general and also spoke about the evolution of species. The speaker gave the participants various ideas for pursuing their research. He spoke about the publicly available programs, which can be used to study the Genome of organisms. Dr. Mani spoke about the wonderful heat shock protein and its use. He also showed participants its structure and function using a virtual movie. He concluded the session by taking questions from the audience. Interactive session: The session was very lively and interactive. Dr. Mani used various examples to make his point clear. He spoke in very simple terms, which made the talk easy to comprehend. Session 8 (Afternoon) Title: Recent Advances in NMR. Speaker: Dr.K.V.Ramanathan Professor and Chairman, NMR Research Center, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Technical Session: Dr. Ramanathan started the session by showing the participants the facilities available for NMR Research at the IISc. He spoke about the use of NMR in Biological research. He spoke about the goals of NMR in biological structure prediction. He gave a detailed history about NMR. He spoke about the contribution of Indian scientists in NMR. He spoke about the basic conditions to observe NMR. He spoke about the types of magnets available for NMR. He explained the components of NMR spectrometer using a simple block diagram. He spoke about the 2-D NMR and MRI, which can be used in medicine. He ended the session explaining the further applications of NMR for larger molecules. Interactive Session: The session was very informative for students from the biology background who had little knowledge about the NMR. The participants asked questions to which the speaker answered with interest. Valedictory Session: Dr K V Ramanathan from IISc, Bangalore was the Chief Guest for the valedictory session and he gave away the valedictory address, in which he mentioned the importance of interdisciplinary approach. He also gave away the certificates for the participants and also gave way the prizes for the best three papers presented in the seminar. The first place went to Ms. A. Mahalakshmi, Lecturer, Department of Microbiology, Lady Doak College. The second place was given to Mr.B.Vimal, II M. Sc Biochemistry, Srimad Andavan Arts College, Trichy and the third place went to Ms. A. Shilpa, II M. Sc. Biochemistry, Dr GRDCS, Coimbatore. The participants from the institutions across the country gave feedback about the seminar. There were totally 85 participants from nearly 8 institutes across the country for the seminar. The function concluded with the concluding remarks by the principal Dr K Palaniappan and vote of thanks by Ms. R. Vanitha of I M Sc Bioinformatics, Dr GRDCS and with the National Anthem. Report prepared by – Neelakantan Vikash, PGDBI, Dr GRDCS. Edited by – B. Thiagarajan, Coordinator, Dept. of Bioinformatics, Dr GRDCS.