Brief History of the Centre:-
The DBT-Bioinformatics Centre for Marine Bioresource Conservation and Sustainable Utilization was established on 22/2/2021 at National Centre for Aquatic Animal Health, Cochin University of Science and Technology. National Centre for Aquatic Animal health has been working in the realm of aquatic animal health and marine biotechnology over the past two decades integrating various bioinformatics applications, and in this context, the Bioinformatics Centre was sanctioned to the Centre. . This facility is used in support of the curriculum in "Bioinformatics and Computational Biology" of the M.Tech. programme in Marine Biotechnology supported by Department of Biotechnology, training on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (To the students in Life Science at +2, Undergraduate and Post graduate levels, Teachers in Life Science and Research Scholars) and for executing various research programmes. This is apart from the utility by Students and researchers for processing data of genomics and proteomics related research.

Approved Objectives of the Centre:-
1. Teaching (in support of teaching Bioinformatics and Computational Biology to the students of M.Tech in Marine Biotechnology at NCAAH, DBT sponsored programme)
2. Training on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (To the students in Life Science at +2, Undergraduate and Post graduate levels, Teachers in Life Science and Research Scholars)
3. Supporting the research projects within and outside the Institution - To provide Computational Bioinformatics support to research projects
4. Research: in the areas as follows, for which additional funding will be generated through the submission of specific projects by the respective investigators:
(i) Determination of the extent of perturbation of a typical marine ecosystem by human activity and generation of early warning signs in the form of accurate NGS genomic data.
(ii) Targeted drug discovery from marine biological systems focusing on applications such as virtual screening prediction (using appropriate classification algorithm) and drug efficacy and ADMET prediction (using appropriate regression algorithms)
(iii) Building up synthetic biology platform for biosynthesis of various molecules such as pyocyanin
(iv) Application of NGS in aquatic animal model in assessing xenobiotics deleterious to environmental health under "one health concept".

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• Full Name:  Dr. Valsamma Joseph
• Tel:   04842381120
• Email:   valsamma@cusat.ac.in
• Location:  DBT-Bioinformatics Centre, National Centre for Aquatic Animal Health Cochin University of Science and Technology Lakeside Campus, Fine Arts Avenue, Kochi, Kerala. PIN - 682016.
• Website:   https://www.ncaah.ac.in/national-facilities/bioinformatics-centre-bic/