Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology (COXBIT) in TNAU organized an Hands on Training in Peptide Mass fingerprinting, identification of protein by MALDI-TOF-MS in TNAU on Wednesday and Thursday.

The participants included research scholars and faculties from various colleges and research institutes from all over India attended this training programme.

S. Mohan Kumar, Professor, DPB and Project Director, COXBIT welcomed the gathering and explained how this Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology was established in CPMB&B. And also, he explained on the public private partnership for the development of product-based research and the use of MALDI for protein-based research.

N. Senthil, Director, CPMB&B in his inaugural address delivers a clear view of the development of proteins, different applications of proteomics, advantages of proteomics and limits in the development of proteomics.

He insisted on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in Proteomic research and also explained the different niche areas of proteomics and the usage of MALDI in such areas. These areas included cancer biology, clinical diagnostics, single cell proteomics and paleontological studies, he added.

R. Umarani, Director, Seed Centre in her presidential address explained the importance of seed proteins and their commercial value in the global market. She gave an idea on the entrepreneurship opportunities of seed proteins to the participants. She emphasized the usage of seed proteins in the health industry for the benefit of people, he added.

E. Kokiladevi, Professor and Head, Department of Plant Biotechnology proposed the vote of thanks. She explained about the importance of proteomics and the development of metabolomic and proteomic facility in TNAU.

Following Associate Professors S. Vellaikumar, N. Bharathi, Assistant Professors M. Sudha and N. Saranya, P. Karthikeyan, Field Application Specialist from Spinco Biotech PVT Ltd., explained about the mass spectrometry, the basics of software and hardware of MALDI TOFF and loading of trypsin digested samples into MALDI TOFF instrument. The sample analysis and interpretation of results were explained and demonstrated in detail to the participants.