Gate 2023 syllabus of Biotechnology

Matrices and determinants; Systems of linear equations; Eigen values and Eigen
vectors.

Limits, continuity and differentiability; Partial derivatives, maxima and minima;
Sequences and series; Test for convergence.

Linear and nonlinear first order ODEs, higher order ODEs with constant
coefficients; Cauchy’s and Euler’s equations; Laplace transforms.

Mean, median, mode and standard deviation; Random variables;
Poisson, normal and binomial distributions; Correlation and regression analysis.

Solution of linear and nonlinear algebraic equations; Integration by trapezoidal
and Simpson’s rule; Single step method for differential equations

Biomolecules – structure and function; Biological membranes – structure, membrane channels and pumps, molecular motors, action potential and transport processes; Basic concepts and regulation of metabolism of carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids and nucleic acids; Photosynthesis, respiration and electron transport chain. Enzymes – Classification, catalytic and regulatory strategies; Enzyme kinetics – Michaelis-Menten equation; Enzyme inhibition -competitive, non-competitive and uncompetitive inhibition.

Bacterial classification and diversity; Microbial Ecology – microbes in marine, fresh water and terrestrial ecosystems; Microbial interactions; Viruses – structure and classification; Methods in microbiology; Microbial growth and nutrition; Nitrogen fixation; Microbial diseases and host-pathogen interactions; Antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance.

Innate and adaptive immunity, humoral and cell mediated immunity; Antibody structure and function; Molecular basis of antibody diversity; T cell and B cell development; Antigen-antibody reaction; Complement; Primary and secondary lymphoid organs; Major histocompatibility complex (MHC); Antigen processing and presentation; Polyclonal and monoclonal antibody; Regulation of immune response; Immune tolerance; Hypersensitivity; Autoimmunity; Graft versus hostreaction; Immunization and vaccines.

Mendelian inheritance; Gene interaction; Complementation; Linkage, recombination and chromosome mapping; Extra chromosomal inheritance; Microbial genetics – transformation, transduction and conjugation; Horizontal gene transfer and transposable elements; Chromosomal variation; Genetic disorders; Population genetics; Epigenetics; Selection and inheritance; Adaptive and neutral evolution; Genetic drift; Species and speciation.

Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell structure; Cell cycle and cell growth control; Cell-cell communication; Cell signalling and sign altransduction; Post-translational modifications; Protein trafficking; Cell death and autophagy; Extra-cellular matrix.

Molecular structure of genes and chromosomes; Mutations and mutagenesis; Regulation of gene expression; Nucleic acid – replication, transcription, splicing, translation andtheir regulatory mechanisms; Non-coding and micro RNA; RNA interference; DNA damage and repair.

Material and energy balances for reactive and non-reactive systems; Recycle, bypass and purge processes; Stoichiometry of growth and product formation; Degree of reduction, electron balance and theoretical oxygen demand.

Laws of thermodynamics; Solution thermodynamics; Phase equilibria, reaction equilibria; Ligand binding; Membrane potential; Energetics of metabolic pathways, oxidation and reduction reactions.

Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, fluid flow – laminar and turbulent; Mixing in bioreactors, mixing time; Molecular diffusion and film theory; Oxygen transfer and uptake in bioreactor, kLa and its measurement; Conductive and convective heat transfer, LMTD, overall heat transfer coefficient; Heat exchangers.

Rate law, zero and first order kinetics; Ideal reactors – batch, mixed flow and plug flow; Enzyme immobilization, diffusion effects – Thiele modulus, effectiveness factor, Damkoehler number; Kinetics of cell growth, substrate utilization and product formation; Structured and unstructured models; Batch, fed-batch and continuous processes; Microbial and enzyme reactors; Optimization and scale up.

Media formulation and optimization; Sterilization of air and media; Filtration – membrane filtration, ultrafiltration; Centrifugation – high speed and ultra; Cell disruption; Principles of chromatography – ion exchange, gel filtration, hydrophobic interaction, affinity, GC, HPLC and FPLC; Extraction, adsorption and drying.

Pressure, temperature and flow measurement devices; Valves; First order and second order systems; Feedback and feed forward control; Types of controllers – proportional, derivative and integral control, tuning of controllers.

Totipotency; Regeneration of plants; Plant growth regulators and elicitors; Tissue culture and cell suspension culture system – methodology, kinetics of growth and nutrient optimization; Production of secondary metabolites; Hairy root culture; Plant products of industrial importance; Artificial seeds; Somaclonal variation; Protoplast, protoplast fusion – somatic hybrid and cybrid; Transgenic plants – direct and indirect methods of gene transfer techniques; Selection marker and reporter gene; Plastid transformation.

Culture media composition and growth conditions; Animal cell and tissue preservation; Anchorage and non-anchorage dependent cell culture; Kinetics of cell growth; Micro & macrocarrier culture; Hybridoma technology; Stem cell technology; Animal cloning; Transgenic animals; Knock-out and knock-in animals.

Production of biomass and primary/secondary metabolites – Biofuels, bioplastics, industrial enzymes, antibiotics; Large scale production and purification of recombinant proteins and metabolites; Clinical-, food- and industrial- microbiology; Screening strategies for new products.

Restriction and modification enzymes; Vectors – plasmids, bacteriophage and other viral vectors, cosmids, Ti plasmid, bacterial and yeast artificial chromosomes; Expression vectors; cDNA and genomic DNA library; Gene isolation and cloning, strategies for production of recombinant proteins; Transposons and gene targeting;

Polymerase chain reaction; DNA/RNA labelling and sequencing; Southern and northern blotting; In-situ hybridization; DNA fingerprinting, RAPD, RFLP; Site-directed mutagenesis; Gene transfer technologies; CRISPR-Cas; Biosensing and biosensors.

Principles of microscopy – light, electron, fluorescent and confocal; Principles of spectroscopy – UV, visible, CD, IR, fluorescence, FT-IR, MS, NMR; Electrophoresis; Microarrays;Enzymatic assays; Immunoassays – ELISA, RIA, immunohistochemistry; immunoblotting; Flow cytometry; Whole genome and ChIPsequencing.

Bioinformatics resources and search tools; Sequence and structure databases; Sequence analysis – sequence file formats, scoring matrices, alignment, phylogeny; Genomics, proteomics, metabolomics; Gene prediction; Functional annotation; Secondary structure and 3D structure prediction; Knowledge discovery in biochemical databases; Metagenomics; Metabolic engineering and systems biology.