Government releases Biotech-PRIDE Guidelines

• “Biotech-PRIDE (Promotion of Research and Innovation through Data Exchange) Guidelines” has been released and developed by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology.
• Ministry also launched the web portal for the submission of Biological data to IBDC.
• India ranks number 4 amongst the top 20 countries contributing biological databases1.

• The Government invests a large amount of public funds to generate data in various sectors, including in the biosciences for knowledge generation, to gain deep insights into intricate biological mechanisms and other processes.

Biotech-PRIDE Guidelines:

• These guidelines are aimed at providing a well-defined framework and guiding principles to facilitate and enable sharing and exchange of high-throughput, high-volume biological data generated by research groups across the country.
• The Biotech PRIDE Guidelines will facilitate this and enable the exchange of information to promote research and innovation in different research groups across the country.

• These guidelines do not deal with the generation of biological data per se but is an enabling mechanism to share and exchange information and knowledge generated as per the existing laws, rules, regulations and guidelines of the country.
• These guidelines are the enabling mechanism for sharing the data publicly and within a reasonable period of time after data generation, thus the utility of the data will be maximal.
• Resultantly, the accrual of the benefit of public investment for data generation will not be compromised.

Advantages of guidelines:

• It will be helpful to harmonize, synergize and encourage data sharing for research and analysis in the country and to promote scientific work and foster progress by building on previous work.
• These guidelines will also be advantageous in avoiding duplication and wasteful expenditure of resources on research.
• These guidelines will ensure data sharing benefits viz. maximizing use, avoiding duplication, maximized integration, ownership information, better decision-making and equity of access.

Implementation:

• These Guidelines will be implemented through the Indian Biological Data Centre (IBDC) at Regional Centre for Biotechnology supported by the Department of Biotechnology.
• Other existing datasets/data centres will be bridged to this IBDC which will be called Bio-Grid.

Bio-Grid:

• Bio-Grid will be a National Repository for biological knowledge, information and data
• It will be responsible for enabling its exchange, developing measures for safety, standards and quality for datasets and establishing detailed modalities for accessing data.

Indian Biological Data Center(IBDC):

• It is the first national repository for life science data in India.
• IBDC is mandated to archive all life science data generated from publicly funded research in India.
• The data centre is supported by the Government of India (GOI) through the Department of Biotechnology (DBT).
• It is being established at the Regional Centre of Biotechnology (RCB), Faridabad.