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Ambar Singh Roy

This business school is bridging the theory-practice gap by giving its students some practical training in bioinformatics.

In February 2003, the country's oldest business school added yet another first to its credits. That was when the Kolkata-based Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM) launched a Post-Graduate Diploma course in Bio-informatics in association with the computer education department of Electronics Corporation of India Ltd "to train professionals to handle a very large quantity of data in the exploding new world of bio-informatics".

The idea behind the initiative was also to provide appropriate training in the "management of data and information by using computer tools".

Gradually, the programme was upgraded to a Masters Diploma Course of one-and-a-half years' duration.

However, it was felt that if those completing the course were to be looked upon as industry-ready professionals, it would be necessary to expose the students to real-life industry situations.

To facilitate this, the IISWBM has joined hands with the Chennai-based Helix InfoSystems, which is engaged in consultancy in bio-informatics.

As part of the arrangement, Helix InfoSystems recently conducted a one-week workshop for students of IISWBM wherein they provided "industry-oriented sequential training" in bio-informatics. The theme of the workshop was `Gene-to-Drug: Sequential Approach in Bio-Informatics'.

With industry inputs

"The students here know to handle the software up to a certain extent. They are not equipped to deal with all options. We train them to handle all aspects of the software, analyse and interpret the data and to come out with concluding results", says M. Nalini, Manager, HR and Marketing, Helix InfoSystems. According to her, the training module is based on feedback from industry and, at the end of the programme a certificate is given to the students.

Says Veera Talukdar, IISWBM's Senior Faculty in Bio-informatics: "It is our endeavour to marry management with bio-informatics. We believe that by providing industry-oriented training to our students, we will be able to create a pool of trained manpower ready for deployment in bio-informatics companies. This, in turn, will attract and encourage bio-informatics companies to set up operations in this part of the country."

Henceforth, regular workshops would be held to help bridge the gap between the theoretical course content and topical developments in industry, especially in areas such as developing genetic algorithms and drug designing, she says.

The decision to rope in Helix InfoSystems has found favour with the student community.

"Till now, we knew theoretically what to do but did not know the right approach to apply it.This workshop has helped us to apply the knowledge acquired in real-life industry situations, and to take the sequential approach in this regard", says Sanghamitra Mukhopadhyay, a third semester student of the bio-informatics course.

Adds her classmate Dr Santanu Banerjee: "The workshop has taught us which sequence and standardised protocol to follow in real-life industry situations."

ambar_singhroy@rediffmail.com

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