The Bioinformatics centre at the Centre for Plant Molecular Biology & Biotechnology (earlier CPMB) is one among the Sub-Distributed Information Centre (DISC) of the BTIS network which was established in scientific institutions all over India to foster research, education and training in Bioinformatics.

During the early years of inception, DISC was primarily involved in supporting the researchers of biotechnology and related disciplines in statistical analysis, bibliographic services, browsing facility and providing email and internet facility. Besides, training of students and teachers on bioinformatics titles is carried out every year. With the growing emphasize on Bioinformatics education worldwide and in India, a MSc (Bioinformatics) program was started in 2004 to cater to needs of the students from agriculture and allied subjects. Subsequently an undergraduate program, B. Tech (Bioinformatics) was started in the year 2006. The bioinformatics activities at TNAU were so long been a part of the Department of Plant Molecular Biology & Bioinformatics, presently with the reconstitution of the departments under CPMB&B, henceforth it falls under the Department of Plant Molecular Biology & Bioinformatics.

Objectives

There are several research initiatives in major crops with multitude objectives but leading to one broader goal - Crop improvement.

Area of specialization

Plant Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics

Achievements at a glance

Anna (R) 4 was developed, which records an average grain yield of 3891 kg/ha and is released in Ramnad and Sivagangai districts.
A recombinant inbred line CB (MAS) 20001 isolated from the mapping population developed for mapping the genes controlling Brown plant hopper resistance in rice was recommended for Initial Varietal Trial-Irrigated-Mid Early (IVT-IME).
Development of Low Phytate maize for nutritional improvement by evaluation of germplasm and identification of promising low phytate maize lines.
Developed PrebZIP: A computational tool to identify bZIP transcription factor in eukaryotes.
Differentially expressed genes (DEG's) of a drought stress responsive consensus rice QTL falling between 139.9cM - 143.7cM on chromosome was analyzed.
Developed Comparative codon usage analysis tool.
Establishment of MilletDB: TNAU released Millet varieties with their morphological traits.


Inter Institutional Collaboration

Our faculties participate in a number of national or international collaborative projects and are open to proportions of collaboration with the following leading research institutions:

     1. International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
     2. Coimbatore Institute of Management and Technology (CIMAT)
     3. Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB)
     4. Bharathiar University (BU)
     5. Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU)
     6. Indian Institute of Science (IISC)