About the Programme

Biotechnology is technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine. Biotechnology also means any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use and an emerging sector seeking development in the diverse areas of Tissue Engineering, Micro fluids, Biomedicine, Biosensors, Pharmaceutical, Bioprocess Technologies, Nanotechnology and Genetic engineering: Genetic Engineering of microbes, plants and animals (including marine animals). Genetic engineering implies conferring new capabilities on an organism by Transferring into an organism the appropriate DNA (De oxyribo Nucleic Acid, the genetic material) of another having those capabilities. Biotech is the latest sunrise sector. Biotechnology may be as old as human civilization but modern biotechnology is less than three decades old. Traditional Biotechnology that led to the development of processes for producing products like yogurt, Vinegar, alcohol and cheese was Entirely empirical and bereft of any understanding of the mechanisms that led to the product. There was no possibility of a deliberate design to produce a desired new product. Biotechnology is the science of today and tomorrow. It has applications in all major service sectors of the society i.e. health, agriculture, industry, environment etc. Biotechnology as an application science has taken firm footing in foreign countries where a number of transgenic crops, genetically modified food and recombinant therapeutic molecules for human and animal health are available in the market. In modern biotechnology, we use the in-depth understanding we have gained in the last five decades. Theout of which 60% is in health sector, 10% in agriculture and rest in bioinformatics, genomics & others. The emergence of newer pharma companies headed by technically qualified managers in the country as well as the impact of biotechnological products becoming abundant in foreign countries has changed the prospects of this science at home. These neo-pharma are taking up challenges to invest in their in-house R&D as well as collaborating with national laboratories and centers of excellence to cut short the time to reap the benefits of this fast emerging area.