Decoding genes

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">Biotechnology has emerged as a sought after discipline in recent times. Education Times speaks to professor K Kannan, dean, School of Biotechnology, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU) on the need and relevance of Biotechnology.<br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Areas of excitement</span><br />There is a phobia about biotechnology, we need to de-mystify it.Biotechnology has come out with solutions to the survival issues. Most of the products are made through bacterias or plants. Cloning is an area of biotechnology. Forest and animal cloning is important to boost our production. <br />In the health care sector, biotechnology can be used to make a human cell immortal. Application of stem cells based technology has made skin grafting a possibility. Nanomedicine is a big medical field. Organ transplant has become a reality only through biotechnology. Now we are speaking of bio-civil engineers, who are providing liver, kidney and other organs. Computational biology, popularly known as bioinformatics is a talked about area. It helps you to compute the product you want to design. DNA computing can play a crucial role in assessing the cases of hereditary disease.<br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Course offered at GGSIPU</span><br />We are offering a five and half year B Tech/ M Tech integrated course at GGSIPU. The curriculum includes microbiology, immunology, enzyme technology, agriculture, industrial and food biotechnology, plants and tissue culture, bioinformatics, recombinant DNA technology, and biosafety, bioethics and intellectual property rights. The first four years of studies are generic in nature and the last year is for specialisation. We have invested Rs 2.5 crore in the infrastructure and laboratories and students are given complete freedom to work here. There are 25 seats available for this programme and the admission is done through combined entrance exam, conducted by the university.<br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Employment areas</span> With every state opening several institutes teaching biotechnology there is a demand for trained manpower at these institutions. Moreover, lot of industries are opening to exploit the potential of biotechnology. I personally encourage students to go for entreprenuership .<br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Future scope</span><br />There is going to be a big boom in biotechnology. Biotechnology won’t go down like information technology because it is related to life </div> </div>