M.Sc. in Biochemistry

The School of Life Sciences has been established with an emphasis on interdisciplinary teaching and research in modern biology.

The School consists of four Departments:

1) Department of Biochemistry
2) Department of Plant Sciences
3) Department of Animal Sciences
4) Department of Biotechnology

Each of the three departments offers M.Sc. and Ph.D. programmes of study. The Department of Biotechnology offers M.Sc. Biotechnology and M.Tech. in Bioinformatics. These two courses from the Department of Biotechnology are organised with the participation of faculty of the three departments of the School as well as the Schools of Mathematics and Computer / Information Sciences & Chemistry. Under Distance Education Programme, the School is participating in two P.G. Diplomas: one in "Environmental Management" and the other in "Medicinal Botany".

Department of Biochemistry

The Department of Biochemistry offers highly competitive and popular courses in Biochemistry and Medical Biotechnology. The importance of biochemical basis of the living organisms is emphasized supported by meticulous training in experimental skills to enable the students to pursue research in frontier areas of Biology. At present, the Department carries out research in the areas of Molecular Biology, Neurobiology, Immunology, Molecular Biophysics, Bioenergetics, Protein Biochemistry, Molecular virology, Molecular genetics and Drug design.

M.Sc. Biochemistry: The course is a four semester programme that is evaluated based on credit system. A total of 12 core courses, four elective courses, four practical courses and a project have to be completed successfully by the students in the four semesters.
The core courses offered by the department during the four semesters are:

I semester
Intermediary Metabolism-1
Biophysical Chemistry
Computer Applications in Biology
Genetics (I semester)
Intermediary Metabolism II
Enzymology
Molecular Biology I

II Semester
structural biology

III Semester
Basic Immunology
Molecular Biology II
Bioenergetics and Biomembranes

IV Semester
Nutritional and Clinical Biochemistry

In addition, the Department also offers elective courses such as Endocrine biochemistry, Biostatistics, Neurochemistry, Molecular virology, Genomics and Proteomics (III semester) and Immunochemistry, Protein Phosphorylation and Signal transduction, Microbiology, Genetic disorders, Protein-DNA interactions (IV Semester). In the first three semesters the students have a lab course on Biochemical techniques and in the fourth semester they undertake a project work under the supervision of a faculty member.