Aligarh: Dr. M. Karthikeyan, Scientist at the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune, delivered a lecture on "Role of Chemoinformatics in Academics and Industry" at a programme organized by the Department of Chemistry of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).

While thanking for the invitation to share his thoughts on the subject of his specialization - Chemoinformatics, and highlight the opportunities for students and faculties of chemistry, Prof. Karthikeyan said that Chemoinformatics basically helped to design chemicals with desired properties and also guide us about 'what to make' and 'how to make'.

He said that the subject is very popular around the globe especially in USA, UK, Canada, Japan and Europe. A lot of job opportunities and research positions are available in those countries.

In the US, about five thousand people are involved in this field of study and they earn approximately 3000 crore rupees per annum. Even in India we have several industries like Jubilant Biosys, GE, GVK-Hyderabad, Ranbaxy, Lupin, Parimal, Advinus, Chembiotech, Tata Chemicals etc that have separate departments for Chemoinformatics.

Dr. Karthikeyan said that in academics, a bachelor's course (B.Sc. level) in chemoinformatics is already functional in south India at Lady Dock College for Women where students are pursuing M.Sc. and PhD in Chemoinformatics.

He urged that courses in Chemoinformatics should also be started at different institutes and universities in India. "There are several JRF positions available in chemoinformatics for the students with chemistry, biology, computer science background. Unfortunately, due to lack of knowledge and experience, the students were not available for these positions," he informed.

Urging AMU's Department of Chemistry to begin a course in this field of education, Dr. Karthikeyan clarified, "Additionally, the combination of Chemoinformatics and Bioinformatics allows studying the problems in genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and drug design with a battery of specific methods."