Brief History of the Centre

Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India established Biotechnology Information System (BTIS) in 1987, first of its kind in the world. The aim of BTIS network is to create an infrastructure that enables it to harness, biotechnology through the application of Bioinformatics. Initially, nine Distributed Information Centres (DICs) were established all over the India with objectives to create infrastructure for information dissemination in the field of biotechnology. Bioinformatics Centre (BIC) at Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), Chandigarh is one of the DICs supported by DBT under BTIS programme. The major objective of BIC at IMTECH is to create infrastructure in the field of protein modeling and engineering. In its initial phase, BIC developed software to create and manage biological databases. One of the major strength of this centre is that it is always ahead in establishing modern technologies such as:

• Network was established with other DICs in 1990, via NICNET
• Established and maintained EMAIL facility in 1990 under ERNET project
• High speed workstation (DIGITAL Alpha Chips) were installed in 1994
• Local Area Network was established in 1994
• Internet & Intranet in was setup at IMTECH 1997