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‘Develop information network for farmers’ Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala should think of utilising the potential of computational biology to help farmers, Pawan K. Dhar, senior scientist at the RIKEN Advanced Sciences Institute, Japan, and Editor-in-Chief, Systems and Synthetic Biology journal, has said. He was speaking after inaugurating the State Inter-University Centre of Excellence in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics on the Karyavattom campus of the University of Kerala here on Tuesday. “In the absence of an efficient distribution and marketing system, India loses agricultural products worth crores of rupees every year. The wasted crops could feed one-third of the country’s population,” Dr. Dhar said. He exhorted young scientists to develop a cost-effective system to provide farmers with market information on crop price, demand and availability. He said Kerala could become a model for rest of the country by implementing the e-krishi network information system. Education Minister M.A. Baby, who was the chief guest at the function, highlighted the need for a democratic approach to higher education. He said the government would provide a platform for students to interact with scientists from across the world. Presiding over the inaugural function, Vice-Chancellor A. Jayakrishnan said computational biology could help scientists develop drugs for the treatment of several ailments. The Inter-University Centre of Excellence has been set up with an assistance of Rs.3 crore from the State government. It will facilitate advanced research and education in computational biology and bioinformatics. An M.Tech. programme in Computational Biology will be launched soon, in addition to the ongoing M.Sc., M.Phil. and Ph.D. programmes. Back |
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