The making of the Women in Biology forum (WiB) at Bioclues.

The Women in Biology forum (WiB) of Bioclues (India) began in 2009 to promote and support women pursuing careers in bioinformatics and computational biology. WiB was formed in order to help women scientists deprived of basic research, boost the prominence of women scientists particularly from developing countries, and bridge the gender gap to innovation. WiB has also served as a platform to highlight the work of established female scientists in these fields. Several award-winning women researchers have shared their experiences and provided valuable suggestions to WiB. Headed by Mohanalatha Chandrasekharan and supported by Dr. Reeta Rani Singhania and Renuka Suravajhala, WiB has seen major progress in the last couple of years particularly in the two avenues Mentoring and Research, off the four avenues in Bioclues: Mentoring, Outreach, Research and Entrepreneurship (MORE). In line with the Bioclues vision for bioinformatics in India, the WiB Journal Club (JoC) recognizes women scientists working on functional genomics and bioinformatics, and provides scientific mentorship and support for project design and hypothesis formulation. As a part of Bioclues, WiB members practice the group's open-desk policy and its belief that all members are free to express their own thoughts and opinions. The WiB forum appreciates suggestions and welcomes scientists from around the world to be a part of their mission to encourage women to pursue computational biology and bioinformatics.

Androgenesis in chickpea: anther culture and expressed sequence tags derived annotation.

Double haploid technique is not routinely used in legume breeding programs, though recent publications report haploid plants via anther culture in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). The focus of this study was to develop an efficient and reproducible protocol for the production of double haploids with the application of multiple stress pre-treatments such as centrifugation and osmotic shock for genotypes of interest in chickpea for their direct use in breeding programs. Four genotypes, ICC 4958, WR315, ICCV 95423 and Arearti were tested for anther culture experiments. The yield was shown to be consistent with 3-5 nucleate microspores and 2-7 celled structures with no further growth. To gain a further insight into the molecular mechanism underlying the switch from microsporogenesis to androgenesis, bioinformatics tools were employed. The challenges on the roles of such genes were reviewed while an attempt was made to find putative candidates for androgenesis using Expressed Sequenced Tags (EST) and interolog based protein interaction analyses.

BabyBoom: 3-Dimensional Structure-Based Ligand and Protein Interaction Prediction by Molecular Docking.

Baby Boom (BBM) is a key transcription factor that triggers embryogenesis, enhances transformation and regeneration efficiencies, and regulates developmental pathways in plants. Triggering or activating BBM in non-model crops could overcome the bottlenecks in plant breeding. Understanding BBM's structure is critical for functional characterization and determination of interacting partners and/or ligands. The current in silico study aimed to study BBM's sequence and conservation across all plant proteomes, predict protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions, and perform molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to specifically determine the binding site amino acid residues. In addition, peptide sequences that interact with BBM have also been predicted, which provide avenues for altered functional interactions and the design of peptide mimetics that can be experimentally validated for their role in tissue culture or transformation media. This novel data could pave the way for the exploitation of BBM's potential as the master regulator of specialized plant processes such as apomixes, haploid embryogenesis, and CRISPR/Cas9 transgenic development.

Saffron'omics': The challenges of integrating omic technologies.

Saffron is one of the highly exotic spices known for traditional values and antiquity. It is used for home décor besides serving as a colorant flavor and is widely known for medicinal value. Over the last few years, saffron has garnered a lot of interest due to its anti-cancer, anti-mutagenic, anti-oxidant and immunomodulatory properties. Integration of systems biology approaches with wide applications of saffron remains a growing challenge as new techniques and methods advance. Keeping in view of the dearth of a review summarizing the omics and systems biology of saffron, we bring an outline on advancements in integrating omic technologies, the medicinal plant has seen in recent times.