REPORT OF EDUCATIONAL TRIP TO CSIR-IMTECH, CHANDIGARH ON 22/05/2017

As a part of the curriculum of B.Sc. (Hons.) Biotechnology, a one day educational trip was organised by the Biotechnology Department to Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Microbial Technology (CSIR-IMTECH), Chandigarh on 22/May/2017. The major objective of the trip was to acquaint the students with the instrumentation and processes involved in fermentation technology, preservation of microbial cultures and development, maintenance and functioning of bioinformatics tools used in protein analysis and engineering.

A group of 23 students of B.Sc. Biotechnology was accompanied by Dr. Yogesh Kumar of Biotechnology Department and Dr.Yachen Dolma of Zoology Department of DAV University. Dr.Dabendra K. Sahoo and Dr.Senthil Prasad showed the students the Fermentation and Process Development division of IMTECH. It was an interactive session where students were explained about the steps and instrumentation involved in mass production of pharmaceutically important proteins in microorganisms by growing them in small scale and large scale fermenters.

Dr. Suresh Korpole of IMTECH took the students to Microbial Type Culture Collection (MTCC) centre (a national facility) of IMTECH and demonstrated how microbial cultures are collected, multiplied, coded, preserved and supplied to the researchers. Dr. Manoj Kumar of IMTECH showed Bioinformatics and Mathematical Modelling centre of IMTECH to the students where he explained how bioinformatics tools are developed and accessed to analyse and engineer pharmaceutically and pathologically important proteins. The trip was extremely successful and helpful to the students in developing their interest in research and learning about the current important areas of research and development.