Semarang – Diponegoro University’s Biotechnology Study Program on Wednesday, February 3, 2021 held a webinar entitled “The Role of Bioinformatics in The Use of Biological Resources” as a series of the previous webinar series. In the event, Prof. Topik Hidayat, MSc, PhD., was presented as the keynote speaker and Dr. Siti Nur Jannah, M.Si and Arifah, S.Si as speakers.
The importance of the role of bioinformatics in the field of conservation and research to explore the potential of biodiversity was the main topic of discussion delivered by Prof. Topik Hidayat, MSc, PhD who is one of the professors from Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung. He emphasized that the bioinformatics can be applied to many aspects for the benefit of biodiversity such as plant breeding and conservation of biological resources. Phylogenetic tree construction methods and sample sequence data are a main key for tracking the level of diversity and rarity of a species. So that conservation actions and species data collections become faster.
Besides that Dr. Siti Nur Jannah, M.Si explained the microbial biodiversity that exists. By taking the example of the digestive tract of chickens, the level of diversity of the lactic acid microbial species could be traced using molecular and phylogenetic identification methods. To clarify how the phylogenetic tree construction method works, Arifah, S.Si illustrated very clearly in this session. Using various software and applications, species diversity could be traced only by using DNA samples.
So that the science of bioinformatics has high potential which can be used to find the benefits of biological resources, especially those in Indonesia.
This webinar session lasted for 4 hours and was enthusiastically attended by more than 150 participants, from various institutions, to the end of the event.