Plant and Animal Biotechnology

Plant tissue culture: historical perspective; totipotency; organogenesis; Somatic embryogenesis; establishment of cultures – callus culture, cell suspension culture, media preparation – nutrients and plant hormones; sterilization techniques; applications of tissue culture - micropropagation; somaclonal variation; androgenesis and its applications in genetics and plant breeding; germplasm conservation and cryopreservation; synthetic seed production; protoplast culture and somatic hybridization - protoplast isolation; culture and usage; somatic hybridization - methods and applications; cybrids and somatic cell genetics; plant cell cultures for secondary metabolite production. Animal cell culture: brief history of animal cell culture; cell culture media and reagents; culture of mammalian cells, tissues and organs; primary culture, secondary culture, continuous cell lines, suspension cultures; application of animal cell culture for virus isolation and in vitro testing of drugs, testing of toxicity of environmental pollutants in cell culture, application of cell culture technology in production of human and animal viral vaccines and pharmaceutical proteins.

Genetic engineering: Agrobacterium-plant interaction; virulence; Ti and Ri plasmids; opines and their significance; T-DNA transfer; disarmed Ti plasmid; Genetic transformation - Agrobacterium-mediated gene delivery; cointegrate and binary vectors and their utility; direct gene transfer - PEG-mediated, electroporation, particle bombardment and alternative methods; screenable and selectable markers; characterization of transgenics; chloroplast transformation; marker-free methodologies; advanced methodologies - cisgenesis, intragenesis and genome editing; molecular pharming - concept of plants as biofactories, production of industrial enzymes and pharmaceutically important compounds.

Animal reproductive biotechnology: structure of sperms and ovum; cryopreservation of sperms and ova of livestock; artificial insemination; superovulation, embryo recovery and in vitro fertilization; culture of embryos; cryopreservation of embryos; embryo transfer technology; transgenic manipulation of animal embryos; applications of transgenic animal technology; animal cloning - basic concept, cloning for conservation for conservation endangered species; Vaccinology: history of development of vaccines, introduction to the concept of vaccines, conventional methods of animal vaccine production, recombinant approaches to vaccine production, modern vaccines.

Overview of genomics – definition, complexity and classification; need for genomics level analysis; methods of analyzing genome at various levels – DNA, RNA, protein, metabolites and phenotype; genome projects and bioinformatics resources for genome research – databases; overview of forward and reverse genetics for assigning function for genes.

Molecular markers - hybridization and PCR based markers RFLP, RAPD, STS, SSR, AFLP, SNP markers; DNA fingerprinting-principles and applications; introduction to mapping of genes/QTLs; marker-assisted selection - strategies for Introducing genes of biotic and abiotic stress resistance in plants: genetic basis for disease resistance in animals; molecular diagnostics of pathogens in plants and animals; detection of meat adulteration using DNA based methods.