CDFD is a Sun Microsystems centre of excellence in medical bio-informatics, supported with a strong bioinformatics facility, and is the India node of the EMBnet.

The centre is equipped with instrumentation and computing infrastructure to facilitate working in frontier areas of research in life sciences.

There are twenty-two groups working on diverse research areas and the centre continues to attract leaders in related disciplines.

[9] CDFD started its operations at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research organisation, and was housed in an interim building in Nacharam from early 1999 to December 2008.

But, due to some of the governmental objections pertaining to the proximity of the new campus to Osman Sagar lake, any of the wet-lab work was not allowed.