Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
The school of biotechnology at BHU established in 1986, is one among the five MSc biotechnology programs in the country which started with the DBT support. The course runs on semester system and evaluation is credit-based. During the academic year 2012-13, 18 students were admitted out of 27 applications received by the school from joint entrance examination held by Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Every year, the school invites 15-20 eminent professors/scientists for interaction with students in the area of biotechnology. It has active research programs in molecular microbiology, functional genomics, molecular and cellular immunology, tumor immunology, enzymology and plant biotechnology. Every year the school produces 4-5 PhD students and publishes 20-25 research papers. Almost all the students qualify for NET/GATE and about 70-80 percent qualify for JRF. In view of its excellence in research, UGC and DST have identified the school under DRS (phase II) and FIST (phase I) support, respectively. Since 2008, about 132 biotech related research papers from the school have been published in the international journals. The impact factor of publications from the department was above 2.0 in the last year.
The school has become a part of the newly formed DBT-funded interdisciplinary School of Life Sciences four years back, under which a sum of Rs 24 crore has been sanctioned. The school is also associated with DST PURSE scheme. The course work for PhD program has also been introduced from the current semester. The school also has the access to HPLC equipment for protein purification through the SLS sponsored by DBT. The school is currently working upon various R&D projects worth Rs 1.51 crore, sponsored by government funding agencies. The school on its part has stepped up its efforts to have more industry interactions. However, owing to their preference, most of the students from the school during 2013 chose to opt for the higher research.
The best achievement for the school was that the percentage of students qualifying in national test for fellowships was 100 percent. The school has been the proud recipient of a letter of appreciation from Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. DBT in its letter dated November, 2011 had praised the MSc program of the school and ranked it among top few.
