Course Details
There are many graduate, postgraduate, doctorates and at the post-doctorate courses in bioinformatics in India. A bioinformatics career starts with a graduate degree in this subject for which the minimum qualification is 10+2 pass with Science subjects. For getting admission in M.SC/M.Tech Bioinformatics candidate should have bachelor's degree in Physical, Biological, Agricultural, Veterinary, Fishery Sciences, Horticulture, Pharmacy, Engineering, Technology or Medicine (MBBS/ BAMS / BHMS).
Admissions to all postgraduate and some of the graduate courses are through all India entrance exam conducted by different national and state level universities at multitude of centers. In addition to this, students who have qualified the CSIR/UGC NET-JRF, DBT-JRF, ICMR-JRF, GATE examinations for JRF-fellowship can directly apply for the interview, and need not appear in the written entrance examination. Besides this, further specialization at postgraduate level and PhD can be pursued.
Career Prospects
Bioinformatics professionals have multiple career options. Most of these professionals are absorbed in pharmaceutical and Biotech companies. They can also work with premier scientific research institutes of public and private sector. They can also work with government and private hospitals. These professional also can find employment in industries manufacturing various biomedical products. One can also take up teaching jobs in public and private collages offering bioinformatics as a subject.
The scope of bioinformatics is in areas like database design and maintenance, sequence assembly, proteomics, clinical pharmacologist, sequence analysis, informatics developer and bio-analytics. Indian companies like Wipro, Reliance, Satyam, TCS and companies like Accelrys and IBM Life Sciences Pubgene, Silicon Genetics and Tessella offer good employments to the bioinformatics candidates.
Top Colleges Offering UG/PG/Other Courses
Many universities and technical institutes offer courses in bioinformatics in India. Some of them are given below. Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi and Kharagpur, National Institute of Technology at Bhopal and Rourkela (Orissa); Calcutta University, Kolkata; Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, Bangalore; Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad and Hyderabad; Jamia Millia Ismalia University, New Delhi; Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai; Pondicherry University, Puducherry; SRM University, Chennai; University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad; Universtiy of Pune, Pune; Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore; West Bengal University of Technology; DOEACC Society, Kolkata and Bharathiar university, Coimbatore.
Remuneration
Bioinformatics is a highly remunerative career options. Those employed in government research institutes and hospital get salary as fixed by government. It can be Rs 8,000 to Rs 20,000 depending upon work profile and experience. Professors in government collages get basic pay of Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 per month. Those working in private sector pharmaceutical companies or multination companies get a pay scale of Rs 4, 50,000 - Rs 6, 00,000 per annum.
