Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB)
 | |
| Type | Non-profit academic and research institution |
|---|---|
| Established | 2001 |
| Director | Prof. N. Yathindra |
Academic staff | 11 Core Faculty, 2 Research Scientists and several Adjunct and Guest Faculty |
Administrative staff | 6 |
| Postgraduates | 600 |
| Location | Bengaluru (Bangalore), India |
| Campus | Biotech Park, Electronics City Phase 1 |
| Nickname | IBAB |
| Website | ibab.ac.in |
The Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) is a non-profit autonomous institute set up by the Department of IT, BT and S&T, Government of Karnataka. It is located in a 20-acre campus in the southern part of the City of Bengaluru and is a part of Biotech Park. Its mission is to help grow the biotech industry and, to fulfill this mission, it has adopted the strategies of education, research and promoting entrepreneurship.
History
The Department of Information Technology and Biotechnology of the Government of Karnataka established the institute in 2001, with financial support from ICICI Bank. The institute has received overwhelming support from academic and industry scientists, primarily those in Bengaluru. Its programmes would not be possible without this ongoing support.
IBAB's first director, Prof. Manju Bansal, is a professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. She was with the institute for the first three years. She was succeeded by Prof. N. Yathindra of the University of Madras.
Originally located at the International Tech Park, IBAB moved to its own campus in the Biotech Park, Electronic City in Bengaluru in June 2009. The two-storeyed academic block of the new campus has (in its first phase) 30,000 sq ft. There is a three-storeyed men's hostel, which can accommodate almost 100 students, and a dining block. The lady students moved into their spacious new 4-storeyed hostel on 20 March 2015. In addition, a neighbouring 60,000 sq. ft. life science and med-tech incubator is almost ready for occupancy, probably by end-April 2015.
Funding support
The institute continues to be supported by the Government of Karnataka's Department of IT, BT and S&T. It has been funded under DST's FIST programme, and has received research funding from the Department of IT, Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science & Technology, all of the Government of India. It has been recognized as a Centre of Excellence of the Department of Electronics and IT, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India.
Most recently the institute has received generous funding from the Infosys Foundation to fund the Infosys Chair. In the past, the institute has received faculty chairs from AstraZeneca Research Foundation, Biocon and Merck & Co. and has also been funded by the Wadhwani Foundation and Institut Merieux. IBAB has received scholarship support from the Government of Karnataka, Accelrys, Merck & Co, Millipore, Sartorius, Strand Life Sciences and an anonymous donor. Sudha Murty of the Infosys Foundation has endowed medals to two of the best students of the graduating bioinformatics class each year, and a scholarship in the name of Purnima Chaudhury. Several companies and individuals have supported the students' entrepreneurship activities.
Education
The institute offered a Postgraduate Diploma in Bioinformatics (starting in 2002), Biotechniques (since 2003) and, spurred by an endowed chair by the AstraZeneca Research Foundation India, Cheminformatics (since 2007). The bioinformatics and cheminformatics courses involved 12 months of classes and, in the third term, a six-month internship placement in industry or academia. The biotechniques course involved eight months of coursework and an optional six-month research project. These courses have now been stopped (see below).
Starting in August 2011, IBAB offered an MSc degree in 'Bioinformatics and Biotechnology', recognized by IGNOU, New Delhi. Since August 2013, students have been admitted to the MSc in 'Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology', with the degree awarded by University of Mysore.
The institute has suspended its Biotechniques, Bioinformatics and Cheminformatics programmes since the faculty are focussing on the MSc course. Aside from its PhD programme, it also continues to offer short courses.
The institute has an excellent record in placing its students in various companies (about 95% of its graduating students have been placed in the past). Details of each student's placement are available at http://www.ibab.ac.in/index.php/placements/.
Research
Research work by the faculty has led to bioinformatics tools, such as ExPrimer for primer design. It has also led to several publications in international journals such as Cell, Nature Biotechnology, Nucleic Acids Research, PLoS One, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Journal of Biological Chemistry, BMC Genomics, Bioinformatics, Drug Discovery Today and FEBS Journal. Eight articles in the area of bio-business have appeared in Current Science.
GANIT Labs, Bio-IT Centre
IBAB, in collaboration with Strand Life Sciences, has set up GANIT Labs, Bio-IT Centre, a not-for-profit centre in 2011 that is dedicated to Functional Genomics, Next Generation Sequencing and Computational Biology. Housed at IBAB, the Centre is headed by Dr. Binay Panda. The Centre's initial funding came from the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India and Department of IT, BT and S&T, Government of Karnataka. Various projects at the Centre are funded by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), all Government of India agencies.
GANIT Labs is working on several India-centric projects, namely sequencing and analysis of diseases prevalent in India, and sequencing and analysis of species that are of particular interest to India and have tremendous biotechnological potential. In late 2011, GANIT Labs announced the sequencing of neem. Besides these, the Centre is working on several other subjects, including sequencing of other complex higher organisms, developing bioinformatics and computational pipeline for massive amount of sequencing data.
Promoting entrepreneurship
In 2004, the institute received a grant from the Wadhwani Foundation to promote entrepreneurship. It has since become a partner of the Foundation. The bioinformatics students took a course in entrepreneurship. In addition, the institute does research in the areas of patents and company formation.
Several companies have availed the incubation services of IBAB, including CellWorks Group, Symbiosis Biowares, Novozymes R&D, Shodhaka Life Sciences, Ixora Biosciences, BioCOS Life Sciences, Geniron Biolabs, Microtest Innovations, MIR Life Sciences, DeNovo BioLabs, Privils and String.
References
1. IBAB publications (http://www.ibab.ac.in/index.php/publications/)
2. GANIT publications (http://www.ganitlabs.in/#!publications/ck0q)