What is Bioinformatics?
Scientists, in an attempt to define bioinformatics say,
it is the coming together of biotechnology and Information Technology.
This is a very simplistic explanation of bioinformatics, with different
interpretations in different kinds of business and academic segments.
Software companies suddenly felt that this is the best way to resurrect
some of their declining businesses by naturally extending their software
capabilities into bioinformatics. They said, now let us switch over from
algorithms of banking systems to developing algorithms of human genome.
What are the basic skills required for Bioinformatics?
Biotech companies think it is easy; you just need to acquire some of the
software skills, and hire software engineers. It is not as simple as this.
For a software engineer to describe a gene sequence and how a genetic code
works, is not easy. Or for that matter if you ask a biologist to write some
software in JAVA, I think most probably he will draw a blank.
What are the achievements in this field?
People like Celera Genomics and Human Genome Program took a Herculean task
and came out with the most vital document that we need to pursue our
bioinformatics initiatives with. This is just the beginning, that is,
just creating the database of genetic codesit's just the whole sequence
of human genome. It is a database and a code, to decipher the genetic
code is the challenge ahead.
How valid is In silico testing?
There is a lot of debate on how valid in silico testing is, but I am sure,
over a period of time when reliability factor is established in the silico
tests, then the regulatory authority will accept it.
What is the scope of this study?
Another exciting area is the study of clinical databases the search for
disease specific clinical and genetic databases. This is becoming quite a
fascinating area where so far, in medical transcription era; a lot of
medical data was collected but not on electronic databases. Now the medical
database is transcribed on electronic databases, a company within a
BIOCON INDIA group called "Clinigene" is doing exactly this.
What in your opinion is the function of Bioinformatics?
In order to understand fundamental mechanisms of how a disease manifests,
progresses and develops complications, one needs a better data collection
both from the patient and the clinical laboratory. Better co-relation can
be found in order to diagnose and intervene in a disease.
How do you account for the costs incurred in these studies?
Visualization and graphics are essentially very important particularly in
India and other developing economies to allow biologists to be able to do
modeling and visualization on platform that don't cost earth. Typically,
companies have to spend lots of high-end silicon graphics workstations.
In India, we are trying to leverage technologies that are available today
on desktop PC platforms.
What is the status of the Bio informatics Industry?
Around 300 noted companies worldwide are growing at the average compound
growth rate of over 30% but they are largely small and focussed players.
A huge amount of them are privately owned. Genomics companies are gradually
changing into Bio-informatics, but then you can't truly be Genomics company
without Bioinformatics expertise.
A segment where Bio-informatics is applied, a large chunk of it is
pharmaceuticals, genomics and agri-Biotech. Is there a market? Is it a
worthwhile proposition? It is estimated that by 2010 the market for
Bio-informatics will be just be 6 billion US dollars.
We should keep in mind that this is the money people estimated for
bio-informatics. There are number of companies that process in house
that are not captured in these numbers.
Professor Vijay Chandru, President and Chief Scientist, Strand Genomics
How is Bioinformatics applied in the pharma sector?
75% of the cost that are involved in bringing out new drugs are associated
with drug targets and that's why Bio-informatics is becoming more and more
important in form of drug discovery, in terms of toxicity, in terms of
trials for the drugs themselves on computer simulated models, this is again
a very critical role for bio-informatics.
Number of alliances, convergence and consolidation are taking place in
Bio-informatics industry. The kind of alliances is between the pharmaceutical
companies, the academic research institutions, traditional computer,
electronic and IT services companies.
"The Bio-informatics industry is highly fragmented. These alliances
align the players.
What are the current trends in Bioinformatics companies?
Another thing that is happening in Bio-informatics companies is that they
are moving up in the value chain, many Bio-informatic companies are turning
into full-fledged pharma companies themselves. We are going to see more of
biotech-to-biotech acquisitions and may be biotech to pharmaceuticals
acquisitions in the years to come.
Related Links
Please comment on the interest of the Venture Capitalists in the
Bioinformatics.The VCs are so fascinated by the bioinformatics that after
Celera Genomics, everyone is interested in the bioinformatics game. VCs
are excited and mouthing jargons like genomics and proteomics and
pharmacogenomics. It all sounds so exciting, but if you ask VCs to
draw up and explain what excites them about business of bioinformatics,
again a very few people have a clear cut understanding of this segment.
There is a need to understand what we mean by bioinformatics? What is
bioinformatics? What is hype and what is reality?
The most recent excitement in the area of bioinformatics is the area of
computational simulations of experimental biology, which is being referred
to as " in silico test", in silico means on the computer as on the silicon
chip. " In silico" testing offers a very exciting opportunity for
bioinformatics. This is the area, which will grow in a prolific way
given the need to obtain a greater degree of predictability in both
human and animal trials.
In silico tests have reduced a lot of animal testing that you need to do,
and are almost much more predictable about the success of the drugs during
human clinical trials. Now irrespective of whether regulatory authorities
accept it sooner or later, it's certainly going to be very important area.
Computational modeling will certainly speed up research and deliver immense cost cutting opportunity for various kinds of research activities.
Dr. Arvind of Biocon Ltd.
Huge amount of clinical data, and a huge amount of biological data needs to
be married, analyzed and synthesized for meaningful biological markers to be
derived.
A very fascinating field combining clinical data with genetic data is
even more exciting because the objective is to look for disease subjects.
The excitement in doing this kind of research is in using bioinformatics.
The challenge is to bring together skill sets of software and computational
modeling with experimental biology and this is the challenge.
