DEPARTMENT OF BIOTECHNOLOGY
KURUKHETRA UNIVERSITY, KURUKSHETRA
Ph.D. ENTRANCE TEST
(2010-2011)

Syllabus & Scheme of Examination

Paper	Title	Marks	Duration of Exam.	
I	General (Objective)	100	One Hour	
II	Biotechnology (Subjective)	100	Two Hours	

Paper - I General
Time: 1 Hour 
Marks: 100
Note: There will be 50 questions of objective type of 2 marks each, with major emphasis on research methodology and reasoning ability.

Topics:
Good Lab practices, Chemical hazards, Radiation safety, Lab safety, Recombinant DNA safety, Handling of microbes, Animal handling and ethical issues, Electrophoresis, Centrifugation, Microscopy, Spectroscopy, Chromatography, Crystallography, Radio tracer technique.
Intellectural Property Rights, Basic Mathematics, Computer (basics), Microbial taxonomy - Principle, Microbial ecology, Immunodiagnostics.
Mutants, mutagenesis and mutations, Bacteriophage as a genetic system, Prokaryotic genetics mapping, conjugation, Genetic recombination.
Biocatalysis : Enzyme chemistry, enzymes in organic synthesis, enzyme models Chemical properties of proteins, Conformation properties of proteins, Protein degradation and turnover, Proteins in membranes, Physical & chemical interactions of proteins, Protein stability, Protein evolution, Proteomics and protein-protein interactions.
Nucleic Acids structure, Molecular mechanisms of DNA replication, Gene Regulation.

Paper - II Biotechnology
Note: Attempt all questions.

Time: 2 Hours 
Marks: 100 
Instructions to Paper Setter: Questions will be based on research methodology related to the concerned subjects and general nature of the subject. Question No. I will be of multiple parts very short answer type of 1 mark each. Question No. 2, 3, & 4 will be from Section-A, B & C respectively and will have 5 parts each (Each part will be of 5 marks).
Section - A
Structure and Organisation of the Cell, Microscopic study of cell, Intracellular compartment and protein sorting, vesicular traffic in the secretory and endocytotic pathways, Signal transduction, cell division cycle and cancer
Nucleic Acids structure, DNA replication (Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic), Gene regulation (Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic)
Mutants, mutagenesis and mutations, Bacteriophage as a genetic system, Genetics of yeast, Genetic recombination, Transposons as tools in genetic analysis.
Section - B
Amino acids and peptides, Biocatalysis: Enzyme chemistry, enzymes in organic synthesis, enzyme models 
Chemical properties of proteins, Conformation properties of proteins, Protein degradation and turnover, Proteins in membranes, Physical & chemical interactions of proteins, Protein stability, Protein evolution, Protein architecture - folds and domains, Protein modifications, Protein catalytic function, Protein engineering 
Recombinant DNA Technology (cloning and expression vectors), Heterologous gene expression system.
PCR and its applications.
Bioprocess development: Screening of industrially important microorganisms, culture media formulation and optimization, Process for primary and secondary metabolites, improvement of industrially important microbial strains.
Section - C
Bioreactions and bioreactors: Principles of bioprocess engineering: Cell growth and product formation kinetics, types of reactors, analysis and design of bioreactors, Transport phenomena, Asepsis and sterilization, Bioprocess scale up.
Dowstream processing: Principles of choosing a separation system, Intracellular and extracellular product recovery methods, Cell disruption, Important downstream process: Centrifugation, Filtration, Membrane based method, extraction, adsorption, Chromatography, Bioprocess synthesis 
Immobilised cells of enzymes: Principles of immobilization, Methods of immobilization of enzymes and cells. Analysis of immobilized reactors 
Intellectual property rights, Biosafety and Biotechnology, ethical issues in biotechnology.