Department of Microbiology
The Masters course in Microbiology was started to impart knowledge about the importance of micro-organisms as experimental tools in basic research, biochemical and genetical studies; their role in the maintenance of environmental quality, agriculture and medicine and in the pharmaceutical, dairy, detergent, leather, starch, food and feed, fermentation and pulp and paper industries. There is an increasing demand for trained microbiologists in pollution control organizations, food processing, pharmaceutical and fermentation industries, industrial effluent treatment plants and in various national and international research institutes.
The M Phil Course in Biotechnology is jointly run by the Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry, Biophysics and Genetics.
The research areas available for Ph.D. students are microbial differentiation, food and industrial microbiology, environmental microbiology, agricultural microbiology, microbial pathogens and pathogenicity, medical microbiology, immunology, clinical microbiology, genetic engineering and microbial molecular biology.
The research interests of the Department are in the areas of production of industrially important enzymes and carbohydrates from yeasts, moulds, actinomycetes and bacteria; microbial differentiation, lignocellulose biodegradation, ethanol production from lignocellulosics, molecular biology of lignin degradation, antifungal antibiotics, hemolysins, mass inoculum production of ectomycorrhiza and other important fungi, carbon sequestration using heterotrophs, bioremediation, understanding host pathogen interaction, new drug targets, microbial genomics and proteomics and metagenomics. Collaboration with industries for research is an important thrust in the Department.
Faculty:
Professors: Dr. R. K. Saxena (Microbial Physiology and Regulation, Industrial Microbiology, Microbial Genetics)
Dr. T. Satyanarayana (Industrial and Environmental Microbiology)
Dr. R. C. Kuhad (Environmental, Industrial and Food Microbiology)
Dr. Rani Gupta (Microbial Physiology and Biochemistry, Industrial Microbiology)
Dr. J. S. Virdi (Microbial Pathogenicity, Water-borne Pathogens)
Reader: Dr. Swati Saha (Microbial Genetics and Recombinant DNA Technology)
Lecturer: Dr. Amita Gupta (Recombinant DNA Technology, Immunoproteomics,)
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