Biotechnology finds its presence in almost everything, be it vitamins, cereal, or medicine. The variety of processed food and biotech products like canola oil and soybean products are easily available in supermarkets. All thanks to biotechnology!

Biotechnology is a rapidly growing field and finds its application in various other fields such as health care, agriculture, pharmaceutical, and genetic engineering. The growing demand for biotechnology professionals in a wide range of industries makes it a popular career option among students. 

Biotechnology as a career- An Overview

Biotechnology is much more a new area of students in recent years. The field is simply defined as an applied knowledge of biology that monitors the functions of living cells and to make them functional in a controlled manner. Biotechnology industry relies on genetic researches to produce products for human conditions, diseases, food, environmental control, and agriculture.

It is an interdisciplinary field that involves engineering technologies and biological sciences to work on biological systems and living organisms. Biotechnology is classified into Industrial Processes and R&D in Biological Sciences.

• Biological Sciences:

This aspect of biotechnology deals with Research & Development in various areas such as Genetics, Microbiology, and Molecular Biology Cell biology to understand the different processes involved in disease treatment, food production, agricultural development, and environmental protection.

• Industrial Processes:This process deals with the production of biofuels, drugs, pharmaceuticals, and vaccines for use in biochemical techniques and processes.

Scope of Biotechnology

The huge scope of biotechnology across the globe attracts students to pursue a course in biotechnology. Professionals in the field are employed in both public and private sector. Reputed government organizations, research institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and agricultural companies are the top recruiters of biotechnologists.

The industrial demand for biotechnology graduates is high. Pharmaceuticals, chemicaland food industries offer several job opportunities. Hence, pursuing a course in the field is considered as a good career decision.

As a biotechnology professional, one can find different job roles. Some of them include:

• Bioinformatics Specialist
• Consultant
• Industry Researcher
• Project Leader
• Research Associate
• Investigator
• Senior Scientist

Working on any position depends on your work experience, qualification, and interest.

Where to Study?

If you wish to pursue a course, you do not need to spend much time in finding a reputed college for biotechnology course. In India, there are several prestigious institutions, which offer biotechnology courses.

Some of them include:

• Indian Institute of Technology-(IIT Madras (B.Tech.)
• Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore (B. Tech.)
• V. J. College of Engineering, Bangalore (B.E.)
• Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi (B. Tech.)
• Delhi Technological University, Delhi (B. Tech.)
• V. College of Engineering, Bangalore (B. E.)

The course content is diverse and includes various papers, including immunology, tissue culture, cell biology,genetics,and R-DNA Technology. Biotechnology courses also include subjects in Computer Science and Chemistry apart from Biology. B. Tech. in Biotechnology is an industry-oriented educational program that serves as a gateway to several excellent job opportunities.

Apart from traditional courses such as B. E. and B. Tech. courses, several institutions also offer Certificate, PhD, Dual Degree and Associate programs to meet the requirement of different students.

The current time for biotechnology career seems promising. This not only gives an opportunity to be a part of new applications but also inventions and amazing discoveries of every day.

By knowing the demand of professionals in biotechnology, students need no more reason to invest their time and money in biotechnology courses.

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Post contributed by Ms Riya Dogra

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