The Bioinformatics Centre at the BRIC-Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) was established in May 2002 under the Biotechnology Information System Network (BTISNet) initiative of the Department of Biotechnology. Over the years, the Advanced Bioinformatics Centre has evolved into a state-of-the-art computational facility, currently supported by the Department of Biotechnology and the Ministry of Earth Sciences under the Deep Ocean Mission programme, with a dedicated focus on marine bioinformatics.

The facility is equipped with advanced high-performance computing infrastructure, including multiple compute nodes, dedicated GPU featuring next-generation architectures, and large-scale memory resources to support data-intensive analyses. Along with this, there are high-end workstations with advanced computational capabilities, enabling seamless integration of computational workflows ranging from large-scale genomics to molecular modelling and artificial intelligence applications.

The Centre provides comprehensive computational support to research activities at ILS, spanning functional genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, multi-omics integration, drug designing and discovery. With the integration of modern approaches such as deep learning and artificial intelligence, the Centre plays a pivotal role in enabling data-driven discovery across diverse domains of life sciences, from fundamental biology to translational research.

Main Thrust Area

The Bioinformatics Centre at ILS advances interdisciplinary research by integrating multi-omics, computational biology, and data science to address complex biological and biomedical challenges. The Centre combines high-throughput data analysis with modern computational approaches, including artificial intelligence and systems modelling, to generate predictive insights across multiple biological scales.

Bioinformatics Centre – Main Thrust Illustration

Facilities

Computational Infrastructure

The Advanced Bioinformatics Centre at ILS hosts a state-of-the-art high-performance computing (HPC) facility designed to support large-scale data analysis and advanced computational research in life sciences.

HPC Infrastructure

HPC Cluster Architecture

  • 6 high-performance compute nodes (128 CPU cores per node)
  • Dedicated 2 GPU nodes equipped with next-generation accelerators, including NVIDIA H100 (2×) and NVIDIA DGX (8× H200)
  • ~7 TB of aggregated system memory
  • 1.1 PB storage capacity
  • Workstations
  • 7 advanced workstations equipped with NVIDIA A6000 GPUs
  • Several high-performance workstations and computers

System Environment

The Bioinformatics Centre operates a Linux-based (Rocky Linux) high-performance computing (HPC) ecosystem with robust workload management through the SLURM scheduler, enabling efficient job scheduling and scalable resource allocation. The infrastructure supports containerized workflows using Apptainer (Singularity) and Docker, ensuring portability, reproducibility, and streamlined deployment of complex computational pipelines.

To facilitate flexible and reproducible research, the Centre maintains a centralized Anaconda-based software environment, seamlessly integrated with the Lmod module management system. This framework enables efficient dependency management, version control, and dynamic switching among multiple software stacks, thereby providing a scalable, user-friendly, and standardised computational environment for diverse bioinformatics and data science applications.

Software & Computational Pipelines

AlphaFold 3, OpenEYE, Schrödinger, NVIDIA Parabricks, CryoSPARC, Relion Cryo EM, GROMACS, NAMD, VMD and many other open-source software for genomics, modeling and simulation.

The Bioinformatics Centre also has a dedicated open-source as well as custom automated pipeline for WGS and Metagenomics assembly and annotation (Snakemake), Chemoinformatics pipeline, and automated pipelines for all types of NGS analysis (NextFlow).

Software and Computational Pipelines

Team Members

Faculty & Scientists

Dr. Debasis Dash
Dr. Debasis Dash
Director, BRIC-ILS
Dr. Anshuman Dixit
Dr. Anshuman Dixit
Scientist-F (In-Charge)
Dr. Sunil Kumar Raghav
Dr. Sunil Kumar Raghav
Scientist-F
Dr. Seema Pradhan
Dr. Seema Pradhan
Scientist-C
Dr. Amaresh C. Panda
Dr. Amaresh C. Panda
Scientist-E
Dr. Punit Prasad
Dr. Punit Prasad
Scientist-F

Post-Doctoral Fellows

Dr. Rashmi Rekha Samal PS-1
Dr. Ritwik Patra PS-1
Dr. Gera Narendra PS-2
Dr. Satya Ranjan Singh PS-1
Dr. Sangita Dixit PS-1
Dr. T Sayamsmruti Panda PRS-1
Dr. Jyotilipsa Mohanty RA-1
Dr. Aishwarya Swain RA-1

Research Scholars

Bineet Kumar Mohanta SRF
Tundup Namgail i3c-BRIC JRF
Pradeep Kumar Das JRF
Sushrut Vivek Bhave JRF
Tapas Kumar Das Computer Programmer
Rory Mishra PA-1
Bibhu Prasad Behera PA-1
Sudeshna Datta SRF
Deepak Jena SRF
Divyanshu Mishra PTS-3
Rasmita Mishra PRS-1
Adyasha Panda SPA
Stiti Pragyan Dash SRF
Rakesh Kumar Yadav PA-2
Subham Layak i3c-BRIC JRF
Bioinformatics Centre Team

IT & Administration

Mr. Satya Sidhartha Mohanty
Mrs. Ipsita Acharya
Mr. Sushanta Kumar Das Sutar
Mr. Biplab Palai Lab. Tech.

Activities (Training Programs and Workshops)

Seven Days ILS Genomics/Transcriptomics Data Analysis Workshop 2025, 7th–12th July 2025.

ILS Genomics/Transcriptomics Data Analysis Workshop 2025

Whole Genome Sequencing Analysis Workshop, 11th–13th February, 2026.

Whole Genome Sequencing Analysis Workshop 2026

Key Publications

  1. 1.Jena, D., Mamidi, P., Singh, S. R., Tripathy, M., Ray, A., Mohapatra, D., Panda, S., Raghav, S. K., Dwibedi, B., Chattopadhyay, S., & Mishra, B. (2026). An in-silico study exploring the differences between the G protein of Chandipura virus isolates with respect to their antigenic sites and their interaction with vimentin. Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology, 60, 101083.
  2. 2.Patra, S., Patra, R., Das, P. K., Dixit, A., & Roychowdhury, A. (2026). WGS analysis and functional studies illustrate promising gene-signatures for probiotic attributes and molecular-targeted therapeutic prospects of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum LP-ARP2. Archives of Microbiology, 208(2), 125.
  3. 3.Raju, B., Narendra, G., Mohanta, B. K., & Dixit, A. (2026). Exploration of novel chemical spaces to discover JAK1 inhibitors: An ensemble docking-guided deep learning approach. ACS Omega, 11(7), 11875–11889.
  4. 4.Bhattacharyya, C., Subramanian, K., Uppili, B., Biswas, N. K., Ramdas, S., Tallapaka, K. B., ... & Data management group (data organization, data quality control, data storage, data archival, data security, data curation) Jothibasu V., Karthik S., Sowpati Divya Tej, Deshpande Sanjay, Nair Deepak T., Raghuvanshi Saurabh. (2025). Mapping genetic diversity with the GenomeIndia project. Nature Genetics, 57(4), 767–773.
  5. 5.Chaudhary, S., Sravya, M., Pahwa, F., Singh, P., Chaturvedi, S., Mohanty, D., ... & Nanda, R. K. (2025). Single-cell profiling of the lung immune cells of diabetes-tuberculosis comorbidity reveals reduced type-II interferon and elevated Th17 responses. eLife, 14.
  6. 6.Dhar, K., Jena, K. K., Mehto, S., et al. (2025). Programmed cell revival from imminent cell death enhances tissue repair and regeneration. EMBO Journal, 44(19), 5244–5289.
  7. 7.Ghosh, A., Biswas, V. K., Bal, H. B., Das, D., Pati, S., Gupta, B., & Raghav, S. K. (2025). Genotypic and phenotypic diversity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains from eastern India. Infection, Genetics and Evolution, 128, 105713. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meegid.2025.105713
  8. 8.Jha, D. K., Parida, S., Pradhan, S., Dey, N., & Majumder, S. (2025). Genome-wide analysis of the laccase gene family in Corchorus olitorius: Insights into stem development, lignification, and responses to abiotic stress. Frontiers in Plant Science, 16, 1568674.
  9. 9.Sahoo, S., Jena, D., Swain, M., et al. (2025). A rare case of fronto-nasal dystosis with multiple dysmorphic features: Comprehensive genetic analysis using whole genome sequencing. Journal of Rare Diseases, 4, 77.
  10. 10.Yadav, A. K., Singh, C. K., Wankhede, D. P., Kalia, R. K., Pradhan, S., Ujjainwal, S., ... & Singh, A. K. (2025). Combined genome-wide association study and expression analysis unravels candidate genes associated with seed weight in moth bean (Vigna aconitifolia). Journal of Plant Growth Regulation, 44(5), 1973–1986.
  11. 11.Agarwal, S., Parija, M., Naik, S., Kumari, P., Mishra, S. K., Adhya, A. K., ... & Dixit, A. (2024). Dysregulated gene subnetworks in breast invasive carcinoma reveal novel tumor suppressor genes. Scientific Reports, 14, 15691.
  12. 12.Jena, D., Ghosh, A., Jha, A., Prasad, P., & Raghav, S. K. (2024). Impact of vaccination on SARS-CoV-2 evolution and immune escape variants. Vaccine, 42(21), 126153.
  13. 13.Kumar, A., Sahu, U., Agnihotri, G., Dixit, A., & Khare, P. (2024). A novel multi-epitope peptide vaccine candidate targeting hepatitis E virus: An in silico approach. Journal of Viral Hepatitis, 31(8), 446–456.
  14. 14.Kumari, P., & Dixit, A. (2024). Comparative functional and molecular analysis of oral submucous fibrosis to oral squamous cell carcinoma: A pathway-based dynamic network analysis.
  15. 15.Panda, M., Pradhan, S., & Mukherjee, P. K. (2024). Transcriptomics reveal useful resources for examining fruit development and variation in fruit size in Coccinia grandis. Frontiers in Plant Science, 15, 1386041.
  16. 16.Raj, A., Aggarwal, S., Singh, P., Yadav, A. K., & Dash, D. (2024). PgxSAVy: A tool for comprehensive evaluation of variant peptide quality in proteogenomics—Catching the (un)usual suspects. Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal, 23, 711–722.
  17. 17.Sharma, N., Pradhan, S., & Majumder, S. (2024). Proteomics-based strategies to develop food crops with enhanced nutritional quality. Plant Proteomics, 226–242.
  18. 18.Singh, S., Shyamal, S., Das, A., & Panda, A. C. (2024). Global identification of mRNA-interacting circular RNAs by CLiPPR-Seq. Nucleic Acids Research, 52(6), e29.
  19. 19.Thergaonkar, R. W., Manchanda, V., Bansal, G., Yadav, A., Singh, J., Varma, B., ... & Hari, P. (2024). Genetic discovery in vesicoureteral reflux using exome sequencing: A pilot study. Medical Journal Armed Forces India.
  20. 20.Abhishek, K., Mohanta, B. K., Kumari, P., Dixit, A., & Puppala, V. R. (2023). GeMemiOM—The first curated database on genes, putative methylation study targets, and microRNA targets for otitis media. Journal of Genetics and Genomics.
  21. 21.Basu, J., Madhulika, S., Murmu, K. C., Mohanty, S., Samal, P., Das, A., Mahapatra, S., Saha, S., Sinha, I., & Prasad, P. (2023). Molecular and epigenetic alterations in normal and malignant myelopoiesis in human leukemia (HL60) promyelocytic cell line model. Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, 11, 1060537.
  22. 22.Aggarwal, S., Raj, A., Kumar, D., Dash, D., & Yadav, A. K. (2022). False discovery rate: The Achilles' heel of proteogenomics. Briefings in Bioinformatics, 23(5), bbac163.
  23. 23.Saha, S., Samal, P., Madhulika, S., Murmu, K. C., Chakraborty, S., Basu, J., ... & Prasad, P. (2022). SMARCD1 negatively regulates myeloid differentiation of leukemic cells via epigenetic mechanisms. Blood Advances, 6(10), 3106–3113.
  24. 24.Sinha, T., Mishra, S. S., Singh, S., & Panda, A. C. (2022). PanCircBase: An online resource for the exploration of circular RNAs in pancreatic islets. Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.
  25. 25.Suranjika, S., Pradhan, S., Nayak, S. S., & Parida, A. (2022). De novo transcriptome assembly and analysis of gene expression in different tissues of moth bean (Vigna aconitifolia). BMC Plant Biology, 22, 198.
  26. 26.Das, A., Shyamal, S., Sinha, T., Mishra, S. S., & Panda, A. C. (2021). Identification of potential circRNA–microRNA–mRNA regulatory network in skeletal muscle. Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, 8.
  27. 27.Mlcochova, P., Kemp, S. A., Dhar, M. S., et al. (2021). SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 Delta variant replication and immune evasion. Nature, 599, 114–119.
  28. 28.Das, D., Das, A., Sahu, M., Mishra, S. S., Khan, S., Bejugam, P. R., Rout, P. K., Bano, S., Mishra, G. P., Raghav, S. K., Dixit, A., & Panda, A. C. (2020). Identification and characterization of circular intronic RNAs derived from insulin gene. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 21(12), 430.
Contact Us
Email: bioinfo@ils.res.in