IMTECH concludes five day National Training Programme on Computational Analysis of Protein Structures

New Delhi: CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH) concluded a five day National Training Programme on Computational Analysis of Protein Structures (CAPS-2019) organized from 9^th to 13^th December 2019 and coordinated by Dr Balvinder Singh, Senior Principal Scientist at IMTECH’s Bioinformatics Centre (BIC).

The workshop was conducted under the aegis of Government of India’s Skill Development mandate to upgrade skills and expertise for the young researchers and faculty in the area of computational techniques on Biomacromolecules with focus on protein structures. Forty participants from different academic and research institutes attended the training programme.

It is important to understand protein structures because proteins are essential for all organisms to function, provide structural integrity to cells and tissues, are main components of the immune system, and are rich sources of energy. It is well known that defects in protein structure leads to several diseases and, therefore, it is imperative to understand their structure for designing new drugs. Understanding protein structures also allow researchers to understand how living organisms operate. Bioinformatics allows researchers to perform analysis on these proteins at large scale, some of which are extremely time consuming or not feasible via experimentation.

The workshop was inaugurated by Prof T. P. Singh, SERB Distinguished fellow, AIIMS, New Delhi who gave the inaugural address entitled “Protein structure to Bioinformatics to Drug Discovery”. During the inaugural function, Dr Manoj Raje, Officiating Director, CSIR-IMTECH welcomed the participants, gave a brief background of CSIR-IMTECH & BIC and said, “The main purpose of the training programme is to enrich the knowledge and skills of participants in the field of bioinformatics with focus on analysing protein structures and to prepare them to move ahead in their careers.”

Prof N. Srinivasan, Chairman, Molecular Biophysics Unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Prof R. Sowdhamini, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore also gave talks on Protein-Protein Interactions and the Histoy of Ramachandran Plot respectively. In addition, resource persons from IISER Mohali, INST Mohali, IIIM, Jammu and faculty of BIC, CSIR-IMTECH demonstrated different computational techniques related to structural analysis and prediction of protein structure and function. Participants of the training programme carried out computations themselves after the demonstrations under the guidance of resource persons. Participants were also shown facilities available at the Institute. Training programme concluded with a talk from Prof. Ashutosh Kumar from IITB, Mumbai.

CSIR-IMTECH is a national center for excellence in microbial sciences and was established in 1984. IMTECH’s vision is to discover and develop translational products and new drugs to address key unmet medical needs