Dr S Sudhakaran is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, AIMST University, Malaysia. He completed his Masters and PhD programs from Bharathidasan University Tiruchirappalli, India. He is an elected fellow of Linnaean Society (FLS) London. An academic and researcher Dr Sudhakaran has 15 years of teaching and research experience in various fields of life sciences. He has to his credit 40 published papers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 1, 2008: The study of living organisms to understand their life, shape, structure, physiology, biochemistry, xcytogenetics, xadaptationsx and their interactions among them and also with their non-living counterparts were traditionally known as biology, zoology, microbiology, embryology and cytology. The science of that age such as taxonomy, biochemistry, genetics, physiology, anatomy were gradually replaced by new disciplines like molecular biology, cell biology, developmental biology and structural biology. The basic and fundamental knowledge of life and life forms were absolutely remarkable with the scientists working in such disciplines because of the perfect framework of basic and fundamental courses inside the curriculum. The introduction of molecular biology, molecular medicine, and gene therapy into the biotech-based program  now has become very popular. The student number opting for such courses is increasing every year. They get not only excellent theoretical and practical knowledge of molecular tools but also understand the processes involved in genetic manipulation of the organisms needed for obtaining desired genes and gene products. Development of in silico techniques and exploitation of knowledge from various disciplines have now made the education and research very attractive.

Genomics which is considered as the third great technological revolution after the industrial and information technology revolutions that dominated the science in the recent past. It is now a healthy approach to address complex biological systems by integrating molecular biology, engineering sciences, physical and chemical sciences, mathematics, modeling and computational tools in a holistic way. Genomic studies that is systematic exploration of genetic programming, the genetic and molecular basis of life and its diversity, systems biology that is the study of an organism (or individual cells or organs) visualized as an integrated and interacting network of genes, proteins and biochemical reaction which give rise to life are the ‘buzz’ words in the current research and teaching. Modeling complex biological systems has become highly practical as the amount of “omics” data (genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics) are plenty and publicly available. The students are showing interests to get exposure in various areas such as modeling software/algorithms, DNA/protein databases, computer-based efficient communication tools while getting knowledge in diverse backgrounds, including biology and medicine, as well as physics, chemistry, mathematics, and engineering in the current educational programs at their undergraduate and post graduate level. The science has become integrative and disciplinary boundaries that were actually designed to enable and facilitate learning are becoming porous. Although each of the individual discipline has its own central principles, most of the time (and one day all the time) will coalesce into one another to become a single entity, one science that is intrinsically simple. The developments in the information technology, biotechnology and medicine transformed the conventional systems into more refined, focused and advanced level using high-throughput genotyping, comparative genomics, transcriptomic and proteomic analyses. Completion of genome projects of human and other model organisms to exploit genomic information concerning functional and regulatory systems, biodiversity and pathogenesis have made remarkable implications in the understanding of life. In the process of learning and understanding students should have a proper foundation in basic science and knowledge in fundamental research. The logical thinking and basic studies (logy’s) should not be neglected and completely transformed by the study of ‘omics’ but the curriculum of courses should have a reasonably balanced mix of all the required basic to specialized courses to deliver a perfect integrative approach that is required for the future generations.