Founding Bio-Informatics branch: The future for the relationship between IT and Biotechnology in Vietnam

Mr. Le Truong Tung, Ph.D. made a speech at the conference

At the conference, FPT University also officially announced that it would make Biomedical-Informatics a major in the training programme for last-year students. This new training programme would be deployed for 1^st-course students of FPT University in 2010.

This was the first time in Vietnam that there had been a forum on this issue with the participation of leading specialists in both IT and Biotechnology.

The conference was attended by the Chairman of Vietnam Association for Information Processing, Chairman of Genetics Society of Vietnam, Chairman of Vietnam Association of Young Scientists and Engineers (VAYSE), Director of National Institute of Software and Digital Content Industry of Vietnam (NISCI), representatives of University of Technology, College of Technology – VNU, research institutes…

Sides also discussed to introduce a solution to promote the development of Bio-Informatics in Vietnam basing on the cooperation between IT and Biotechnology.

Mr. Le Truong Tung, Ph.D. – Rector of FPT University, emphasized that the increasingly close relationship between IT and Biotechnology was the indispensable trend of the world, which would create great development opportunities for Bio-Informatics in the future.

At the conference, specialists also shared the same opinion that this would be a strongly developed field in the future, not only as a science-technology field, but also as a technique-economics field, which would bring about many achievements that could be applied to develop the economy.

Professor Le Dinh Luong, Ph.D. – Vice Chairman and General Secretary of Genetics Society of Vietnam said that modern biotechnology could not be without IT, and machines and equipment could be expensive but not too difficult to afford.

However, it was unfortunate that he himself as well as many people in the biotechnology field in general had had to self-study for many years without much official cooperation with the IT field.

He wished that after the conference, this cooperation would officially be realized, and what mattered was that government’s responsible agencies have to participate.

The Bio-Informatics branch would firstly be a common forum for the sides who wished to speed up the official birth of the Bio-Informatics industry in Vietnam. Sides also hoped that FPT University would become one of the institutions training this major in Vietnam.

As an answer to this issue, Mr. Le Truong Tung, Ph.D. affirmed that Biomedical-Informatics would be a major in the training programme of Software Technology of FPT University.

The organization board hoped that after this conference, government’s authoritative bodies in IT and biotechnology would sit together to agree on the development strategy for the forthcoming period.

This is an important content and needs to be introduced into the National Strategy for IT and biotechnology in the after-2010 period.

For reference:

Instruction 58-CT/TW on IT of Politburo promulgated in October 2000 mentioned biotechnology as well as the need to apply IT in biotechnology.

Instruction 50-CT/TW of the Secretary Board promulgated in May 2005 also mentioned IT, among which Bio-Informatics was very necessary for genetics.

However, since these important instructions of Vietnamese Communist Party were promulgated, the national steering committees of IT and biotechnology as well as other government’s agencies with joint responsibility have had little contact with each other to promote realizable prospects.

According to Professor, Scientific Doctor Do Trung Ta, – Chairman of National Policymaking Council of Science & Technology, IT was a key science not only for itself but also for other sciences as a developing tool.

This has been proved in the case of biotechnology. In 2001, through mass media, it was shown that the images illustrating the American scientists’ achievements in successfully decoding 97% of the human genes were mainly through computers, not laboratory equipment.

In Vietnam, there is a well-known fact that in 2003, Institute of Biotechnology successfully decoded genes to identify the dead soldiers.

After that, this technology became more popular with gene-verifying services not only at Institute of Biotechnology, research institutions of the police, the military, but also at civilian places, a typical example of which is Center for Genetic Analysis and Technology under Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Association.

For more information, please contact:

Nguyen Hoai Anh (Mrs.)
Department of Communication and Public Relations

FPT University
Tel.: 0904 080 337
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.fpt.edu.vn