Introduction :       Established in 1991, the School encompasses three departments viz. Dept. of Microbiology, Biochemistry and Biotechnology under one umbrella for M.Sc. courses. The school is located in the beautiful campus of NMU with an area of 26353.17 sq. ft. and a total laboratory area of 13,500 sq.ft. The School has 09 faculty members and is equipped with sophisticated �Central Instrumentation Facility�, which comprises of state-of-art instrumentation for life sciences research.
Other individual and specialized laboratories like Plant Tissue Culture, Cyanobacteria, Probiotics, Siderophore, Biofuel, Fermentation (10 L), etc. are also integral part of the School. Digital Library with 10 P-IV computers connected parallel to University�s VSAT and 2 MBps Internet facilities is the recent addition to the School. The School further has Green House facility, 6 PG laboratories (2 for each department), Two walk-in cold rooms and -200C and -800C refrigeration facilities.          The School has successfully completed research projects amounting Rs. 1.31 crores and is currently conducting 10 research projects with a research grant of around Rs. 2.40 crores from various government agencies like AICTE, UGC, DBT, DST, CSIR, ICAR, DBRM etc. The School is supported with special grants by UGC (UGC-SAP-DRS) and DST (DST-FIST) programmes to a consolidated amount of Rs. 65 lacs.          The School routinely organizes national and international seminars, symposia, workshops, and refresher courses in life sciences and is frequently visited by scientists of national and international eminence. The School is also actively engaged in extension activities for the benefit of the farmers of the Khandesh region in supplying biofertilizers (Plant growth promoters, Trichoderma, Phosphate solublisers, etc.) on no-profit-no-loss basis and has successfully organized an awareness workshop �Shetkari Melawa�.

Strong Points of School

1. Prof. S. B. Chincholkar was appointed as a member of International scientific committee of International Conference on Emerging Frontiers at the Interface of Chemistry and Biology (ICB-2003), held at CSIR Regional Research Laboratory, Trivandrum during April-2003

2. Prof. S. B. Chincholkar was honored as Organizer and Chairman of Round table Session on Biocontrol Agents in IX International Symposium on Microbial Ecology held at Amsterdam, The Netherlands in August, 2001.
   Prof. S. B. Chincholkar has been appointed as a member of Research & Recognition committee of S.R.T.M. University, Nanded, and Amravati University, Amravati.

3. Dr.V.L.Maheshwari has been selected as a member of peer team for evaluation of colleges and Universities by National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC), Banglore.

4. Earned revenue of approximately Rs. 2.50 lakhs through the sale of Biofertilizers and Siderophore to the farmers of this region. Thus, University is meticulously promoting the progressive and technology-oriented farmers of Khandesh region to organic farming through biotech inputs.

5. Consultancy and analytical services are provided to the industry and different organizations.
   

Course offered (with intake capacity)

Admission eligibility/criteria/procedure

For M. Sc. :

1. Eligibility :
   As per eligibility conditions, B.Sc. students are eligible to apply for the admission to M. Sc. in Microbiology, Biochemistry & Biotechnology. through one single application form.

   * For the reserved category (SC/ST/DT/NT) candidates, the minimum marks limit is 45 %.

2. Criteria :
   Selection is based entirely on candidate's percentage of marks obtained at the graduation, preferences given by the candidate and availability of the seats.

3. Procedure :
   For admission to all the three M.Sc. programs, an advertisement is published in some leading newspapers in the month of May every year. The prescribed application forms are available at the Office of the School.

For Ph. D. Program :

    Good academic record at graduation and post-graduation level.

    The admission to Ph.D. program is open throughout the academic year. It can be joined directly after completion of the M.Sc. degree. A number of research scholarships are available to the student during his/her Ph.D. work through research project grants and/or university fund.

Course wise Seats allocation (Categoriwise/ Coursewise/ Areawise/ NRI/ Industry sponsored etc.) :

1. Scheduled Casts and Nav Buddhas : 13%

2. Scheduled Tribes including those outside specifieds areas. : 07%

3. Denotified Tribes and Nomadic Tribes : 11% (DT-3%,NT-1:2.5%,NT-2:3.5%,& NT-3:2%)

4. Other Backward classes : 19% Total : 50%

5. 10% seats are reserved for candidates from other Universities.

6. There are no allocations for Industry sponsored students.

Laboratory Facilities

    Six Industrial laboratories are available for batchwise conduct of practicals in all 3 subjects. A special research laboratory is provided to research scholars. Besides these, 3 small specialized research laboratories / instrument facilities are available.

Computer Laboratory

A modern computer laboratory, comprising of 5 Pentium II and 5 printers with UPS supply, has started functioning for introducing M.Sc. students to computer/Internet applications and enhancing proficiency of research scholars for their use in data processing and literature surfing. It has also helped our senior research fellows to find out employment/post-doctoral opportunities.

Algalogy Laboratory

A laboratory with all required facilities for maintenance and research on cyanobacterial and algal cultures.

Expansion of fermentation facility

A fermentation facility has been expanded from 3-L capacity fermentor with the addition of 10-L and 25-L capacity indigenously made bioreactors. This facility has been set up for technologies viz. biofertilizer production, steroid biotrasformation, production of siderophoregenic biocontrol agents etc.

Molecular Biology Laboratory

Equipped with PCR Kit, DNA sequencer and other basic facilities.

Tissue Culture Laboratory

The tissue culture facility includes separate inoculation room; weather controlled culture rooms, and a small green house. The culture room is fitted with a microclimatiser, for automatic temperature control, and photoperiodic time. An ozone generating system is used for disinfection of rooms.

Equipments

Extra Curricular activities (students/social/annual etc.)

• Alumni Association program celebrated every year during the occasion of Science day.

• C.D.I. Project

• School has initiated a placement cell for facilitating placement of students, Co-ordinator: Mr. K. S. Vishwakarma

• School has a student organization �Symbiosis� as a platform for student activities. Co-ordinator: Mr. Navin D. Dandi

Any other facilities

1. A 5 acres research farm with drip irrigation for field trials.

2. Modern plant tissue culture laboratory for micro-propagation.

3. Botanical garden for research on bio-pesticides and natural dyes.

4. Polyhouse of 5000 plantlets capacity for hardening.

5. Mycorrhizae laboratory.

6. Fermentation facility to optimize large-scale production.

7. Computer lab with Internet facility.

8. Advanced Research Laboratories.

9. Sophisticated instruments - HPLC, GLC, Uv-VIS spectrophotometer, Ion exchange chromatograph, Viscometer, HPTLC.

Achievements

The school of Life Sciences has fetched a sum of Rs. 125.33 Crores from various project-funding agencies for R & D Projects (ongoing & new).

• Dr. P. R. Puranik (a faculty member) and Mr. Kiran Pawar (contributory teacher) both have qualified CSIR-UGC NET examination. Under C.D.I. Project activities, two Five days national level counseling workshops on "Basic Skills for Counseling of Students" were organized at university campus jointly with Educational Resource Center, New Delhi during 2-6 Sept. and 16-20 Dec., 2002.

• Miss. Hemlata M. Kotkar received Junior Research Fellowship of UGC, New Delhi under Engineering & Technology head.

• Mrs. Kanan Puranik received Research Associateship of CSIR, New Delhi.

• Mr. Pankaj K. Pawar received Senior Research Fellowship of CSIR, New Delhi.

• Mrs. Meenal A. Kulkarni received Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund Fellowship for perusing research work in Microbiology.

• Ms. Mayavati N.Chavan received Late Smita Patil Chief Minister's Fund Fellowship for research work in Biotechnology.

• We take pride to state that 4 of our students have qualified NET, 3 have qualified SET, 7 have qualified GATE examiniation, while 8 have recieved CSIR SRF-ship.

Faculty

Research Projects

Technology Transfer

Consultancy Services

Names of students passed in NET/ SET etc. (last 5 years)