AusBiotech launches bioinformatics group

Industry association AusBiotech has today launched a special interest group to drive collaboration between the IT, biotechnology and medical device sectors.

The AusBiotech Bioinformatics Special Interest Group (ABSIG) was launched at a Sydney conference -- 'Bioinformatics 2002: growing a domestic capability' -- by the group's inaugural chair, Dr Tim Littlejohn of bio-IT company BioLateral.

Littlejohn chaired the Federal government's Bioinformatics Industry Opportunity Taskforce, of which the new group is a direct outcome.

"If we are going to build a viable and strong domestic biotech industry, building our bioinformatics capability is vital," Littlejohn said in a statement. "Medical advances and molecular biotech are now information driven and this requires the combining of ICT and biotech, which bioinformatics is all about."

Littlejohn told Australian Biotechnology News that one of the group's new tasks would be to lobby for government funding -- not directly into bioinformatics projects, but into the biotechnology sector as a whole.

"That way everybody benefits," he explained. "Good biotechnology is underpinned by good bio-IT. Bioinformatics is a barometer for the biotech sector -- the healthier the bio-IT industry is, the healthier the biotechnology sector is, because it's consuming bioinformatics."

Littlejohn said the Bioinformatics Taskforce identified skills development, research, infrastructure, investment, commercialisation and a peak industry body as key factors required to develop an Australian bioinformatics capability. "ABSIG will provide an avenue to address these issues," he said.

Membership of the new group will include the ICT industry, specialist bioinformaticians and the growing number of instrument and biotechnology data production companies in Australia.

The formation of ABSIG comes just a few months after AusBiotech launched a medical devices network. AusBiotech executive director Dr Tony Coulepis said the association was also planning to set up programs in human therapeutics and agricultural biotechnology.

"ABSIG shows the growth and success of AusBiotech as an industry body, and the further differentiation of the organisation required to service members and drive industry growth," Coulepis said in a statement. He said the formation of special interest groups like ABSIG complemented AusBiotech's transformation into a peak biotechnology industry organisation whose membership had grown to more than 1300 members in less than 18 months.

ABSIG will interact closely with other peak bodies, such as the Australian Information Industry Association and the Australian Association of Bioinformatics. Stakeholder meetings will be conducted by ABSIG in capital cities during November.