BANDO

EMBnet Pakistan National Node: PhD training in Bioinformatics

The COMSATS University has recently joined the EMBnet as Pakistan national node and as such is actively promoting training and research in Bioinformatics in Pakistan. These actions have attracted the attention of the science related official authorities like the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the National Biotechnology Commission (NBC).

However lot more needs to be done to set up and kick start high tech research in the area of Bioinformatics in Pakistan. Human resource development is the key point for this purpose which is currently at very low level in this country. To this purpose the EMBnet Pakistan node has suggested to science official authorities to promote and support the training of a number of students to the level of PhD covering all salient areas of Bioinformatics research. Upon their successful return, these scientists will be placed at various places in Pakistan in groups to set up research and develop graduate programs.

The HEC has approved the EMBnet node proposal and is now ready to provide full financial support for 50 students in the following six countries:

• Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Holland & Italy.

• The sponsorship will be for four years and the HEC would sponsor ten to fifteen students for training in Italy alone.

• The scholarship will be done under the Pakistan on-going Overseas PhD Scholarship program. In this Program, HEC sends all the selected candidates to the leading institutions in the selected countries, through active collaboration and assistance of partner agencies identified for each country.

• The scholarships have already been announced and HEC is currently receiving and processing applications. The award list for the scholarships would be announced soon. The whole process is being taken care of by the HEC themselves.

• The PhD will be awarded by the host university and the Pakistan authorities will have no say in that.

• The students will either be from Computer science with Biology or Biologists with some computer background or COMSATS graduates who have degree in Bioinformatics.

• The degree should be Masters followed by PhD and has to have Bioinformatics in the title since the scholarships are for Bioinformatics.

• The Overseas Scholarship Program provides funding for a period of 4years.

• The financials package covers stipend to students (~Euro 11,000 per annum), return air travel, health/medical insurance (~Euro 600 per annum), tuition/bench fee to university (~Euro 6,000 per annum), and provision for payment for language course in Pakistan or abroad if required.

Upon their successful return to Pakistan the students should be able to set up new research projects and develop advance degree programs within Pakistan.

Information the HEC requires are:

• Italian Universities/Departments which offer MS leading to PhD in Bioinformatics and the relevant areas of research.

• The admission requirements at those institutions

• The individual supervisors (please provide a letter showing your consent to accept students, subject to fulfilling your admission requirements)

• The program structure (A course work based research program would be more useful)

Among candidate Institutions the preference goes to:

• The institution where data generation and analysis are done simultaneously

• The institutions interested in setting up ongoing collaborations after the graduates return in Pakistan