The first of 10 thematic workshops on molecular biology and biotechnology commenced at the Ministerial Committee for Science and Technology (Comstech) Secretariat, Islamabad for a period of two weeks with the mutual collaboration of Higher Education Commission and Comstech.
The workshop, "The Use of bioinformatics in genomics research" will train a total of 19 participants, 9 of whom are from OIC member countries such as Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Sudan and Oman. The remaining 10 participants are from universities and research organisations in Pakistan.
This programme focuses on arranging specific thematic symposia and workshops on the pattern of specialised symposia organised by Cold Spring Harbour Labs, New York.
This particular thematic workshop in frontier technologies has been organised to find solutions and develop strategies to solve specific problems of economic importance with relevance to ongoing programmes in biotechnology in OIC countries.
David P Judge, from Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, one of the resource persons, has found that the group asked more questions and was more interactive than those who came across in Cambridge. "This group is highly motivated and determined to learn", commented Dr Judge.
The two-week workshop is focusing on techniques of bioinformatics, with a practical session daily to complement the lecture session. The participants will prepare presentations of their area of work at the end of the workshop. The organisers aim to provide exposure and technical expertise in the chosen field and will be trained to implement the newly acquired knowledge in their countries. HEC and Comstech jointly fund the workshop.
Sonia Cattely, another resource person from the Australian National Genomic Information Service, University of Sydney, said that course was going on a much faster pace than planned due to the zeal and interest shown by the participants.
Other resource persons include Bruno Gaeta, from School of Biotechnology and Biosciences University of New South Wales, Australia, Dr Shahid Nadeem Chohan Department of Biosciences, CIIT and Dr Raheel Qamar, Chairman Department of Biosciences Comsats Institute of Information Technology.
Dr Qamar revealed that Comsats was already in the process of setting up a bioinformatics server, which would be the first bioinformatics facility in the country and would offer software facilities on biological data for research purposes world-wide.
It will be accessible for researchers within Pakistan as well as OIC countries and will become functional within next 4-6 weeks. Talking about the workshop, Dr Anwar Naseem, Adviser Comstech said that the rationale behind holding these workshops was to create a pool of scientists in the Islamic countries, which could benefit from each other's experience. He revealed that young and dedicated scientists from Pakistan were being chosen for participation so that they would be groomed to carry on work at their parent institutions armed with new knowledge and techniques.
This would help promotion of the discipline within Pakistan and OIC countries. The ten workshops will benefit 200 researchers over a period of two years with the ultimate aim to develop strategies to find solutions through the applications of frontier biotechnologies. These strategies will guide a prescribed agenda of research for various universities and research institutes.
Future workshops will focus on Industrial Biotechnology: connecting business and academia, the Use of RNAi in Therapeutics, the Use of Stem cells in Human Regenerative Medicine, Molecular Medicine, Computational Biology and its role in Understanding Complex Cellular Processes, Current Advances in Gene Therapy, Use of Proteomics in Health and disease, Nanomedicine: the Use of Nanoparticles in medical diagnostics and DNA Vaccines: Self Induced Vaccination.
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