Teaching Molecular Biology at the University of Mysore

Biotechnology is a booming field in India and as in Information Technology, many new jobs are created in this emerging field. An important research area in Biotechnology is Molecular Biology. Staying at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore for several months and working on a collaborative project with Prof. U. Tatu at the Department of Biochemistry we - both „Dozenten“ for Molecular- and Microbiology at the University of Berne - realized that there are very rarely practical lab courses in Molecular Biology offered partly due to lack of funds but also scientific staff that is not trained enough for this purpose. A good theoretical and practical training for students is a prerequisite for them to find jobs in private Biotechnology companies, PhD positions at one of the very good Indian Federal Universities or at a University abroad including Switzerland.

One of the institutions we thought we could possibly make some useful contribution to the training of students in Molecular Biology is the University of Mysore which is associated with the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. After our retirement we sent some scientific equipment, reagents, laboratory material and books to the Department of Biochemistry and with the encouragement and help of Prof. C. D’Souza and Prof. B.S. Vishwanath  (former and present chairman of the Department) we set up a course in Molecular Biology including lectures and a practical laboratory course. This initial teaching  program was much appreciated by students and scientific staff. We therefore, with the financial help of the University Exchange Program, will repeat the course for two months in the beginning of 2009.  The course will consist of a series of  lectures dealing with Methods of Gene Technology and Prokaryotic Gene Expression and of a laboratory course in basic Molecular Biological Methods including isolation of DNA, restriction analysis, cloning of a yeast gene and some other methods. The course will be held at the Department of Biochemistry. Lectures will be given by MES (about 20 lessons) and the practical course including the theoretical introduction by AMS  (twice on 10 half days with 16 students each). In addition, in the frame of a new Life Science program, we plan to teach this course also for students from diverse biological fields such as Microbiology, Zoology and Botany. The long range plan is to set up a practical laboratory course that can be later thought by one or several young members of the the scientific staff of Life Science departments.

 

Addresses:

MES and AMS
Prof. Martin Ernst Schweingruber
Dr. Anne-Marie Schweingruber-Geelhaar
Schönbergweg 12
CH-3006 Bern
Switzerland
Tel: 031 352 3119
E-mail: me.schweingruber@bluewin.ch

Prof. B. S. Vishwanath
Prof. C. D’Souza
Department of Biochemistry
University of Mysore
Manasagangotri
Mysore
India
E-mail: vishmy@yahoo.co.uk

M.E. Schweingruber giving a lecture in Molecular Biology