Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Centre for Viral Bioinformatics at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune
The Centre carries out extensive R&D activities in various aspects of virus bioinformatics along with development of bioinformatics resces and human resce development. The scope of the research includes virus genotyping, serotyping, classification, genetic variability, evolutionary dynamics, population stratification and diversification, host-virus interactions, viral tropism, drug and vaccine design, etc.
To be a global Centre of Excellence in Viral Bioinformatics To carry out cutting-edge research on viruses infecting all forms of life To employ data-driven, integrative approaches for knowledge discovery and translational research To undertake research projects in the areas of genomics, comparative genomics, metagenomics, immunoinformatics, phyloinformatics, chemo-informatics and bioinformatics To develop curated databases, novel algorithms, servers and specialised resces for viruses To develop computational infrastructure (hardware, software, customisable workflows etc.) for: Genomics & metagenomics Population genetics & evolutionary biology Comparative genomics & systems biology Immunoinformatics & vaccine design Drug repurposing, drug design and deciphering drug resistance To train human resce in the specialised area of viral bioinformatics
Seminal contributions include the study of unfolding the mystery of emergence of SARS-Cov-2 through a likely spillover event, to map circulation of SARS-Cov-2 lineages in India, to decode likely impact of virus and host variations on efficacy of vaccine, (sponsored SII, Pune). Eight research papers in international journals.
The bioinformatics studies of human and animal viruses have an impact on understanding of genetic variability and its consequences on disease gradation, molecular mechanisms of host-virus interactions, diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for viral diseases such as HPV-16 associated cervical cancer, COVID-19, AIDS, measles, Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis, Monkeypox, etc.
The Centre maintains state-of-art computational infrastructure. A number of algorithms, databases and web servers have been developed in-house. The Return Time Distribution (RTD) based, alignment-free algorithm for virus typing and subtyping, achieves high accuracy and efficiency in viral typing. ML based algorithm has been developed to predict the antibody class/es for epitopes.
Basic and applied research on Viral Bioinformatics; Studies of viruses, viral diseases involving phyloinformatics, genomics, immunoinformatics, drug re-purposing, molecular docking and simulations; Development of bioinformatics resces; High-impact publications
