Institutional record
The centre, the institute and the network
The Bioinformatics Centre is a BTISnet sub node at CSRTI, Mysore. Its work connects a national information network with the specific needs of sericulture research.
The Bioinformatics Centre was established in 1999 as a sub node of BTISnet, Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi, primarily to support biotechnological research in sericulture in the country.
A sub node of a national network
The centre is attached to the BTISnet network of the Department of Biotechnology. That network connects Indian research institutions with international centres such as NCBI in the United States, EBI in the United Kingdom and DDBJ in Japan.
The centre performs its work under the administrative control of the Central Sericultural Research and Training Institute, Mysore. CSRTI is a national institute for sericulture research and training under the Central Silk Board.
Why the centre exists
The centre was established with the main objective of building a repository of biotechnological information generated in laboratories across the country, and making that information available to scientists across the globe in general and in India in particular.
The network is spread across the country with various subject specialisations in biotechnology. Those nodes work together to develop the information repository and its human resource. The centre's own focus is sericulture: mulberry, silkworm, soil and the data needed to connect laboratory research with field practice.
Working principle
Data is useful when it can be found, understood and reused. The centre's database work, training programmes and shared computing access all support that principle.
What the centre has built
The centre develops databases and software for seribioinformatics. Its database shelf covers mulberry genome data, silkworm proteins, silkworm transcription factors, soil properties, protein interactions, microsatellite markers and population structure plotting. The full list is available in the database index.
Training has been a consistent part of the centre's work. Twenty programmes held between 2002 and 2013 are recorded on the legacy website, with 691 participants in total. The training record preserves that table.
Selected milestones
- 1999
The centre is established as a BTISnet sub node at CSRTI, Mysore.
- 2011
A three batch programme on the basics of network and internet usage is held for institute staff and regional centres.
- 2014
The Structure Plot paper is published, documenting a tool for drawing STRUCTURE bar plots from Q matrix data.
- 2019
The latest workshop notice preserved on the legacy site announces a programme on bioinformatics and its applications in biological research.
Institutional position
The centre sits inside CSRTI and within the BTISnet network. The organisational structure sets out that relationship, while the Executive Committee and staff pages record the people named on the legacy website.
The first version of this website opened with this drawing. It is retained as part of the centre's public history and as a reminder that a research service also has a human welcome.