School of Life Sciences

Department of Microbiology

The Department of Microbiology emerged from the parent Department of Botany during 1992 in association with National Facility for Marine Cyanobacteria. A post graduate course on Microbiology was started during 1994. To this course 20 students are recruited every year on merit basis. The syllabus has been framed in such a manner that after completing the course, the students can either do research, get employed in Microbiology related jobs or be their own employers. More than 60 doctoral Research Scholars are performing their Ph.D programme in various fields apart from the routine postgraduate students. Since June 2007, the present Department of Microbiology bifurcated from NFMC into a separate full-fledged department and Full Time M.Phil course was started in the same year. Within a short span of time the Department has procured basic instrumentation facilities from the UGC funds for successfully running the M.Sc., M.Phil., and Ph.D. courses.

The faculties in the Department are totally committed to provide high quality education at Post-graduate and Research levels and they are well recognized for their research contributions at National and International Levels. They have a unique specialization for their research and this helps to train the students in an excellent way. They have received project grants of around Rs. 4 crores from various government funding agencies such as DOD (MoES), DBT, DST, ICMR, CSIR, UGC, IFS and INSA. Recently the department of Microbiology has been received a non-sap fund from UGC for the establishment.

With respect to service, the faculty has an exemplary record of participation in National & International organization, editing professional journals and reviewing grant proposals from regional and national organizations. Apart from these achievements the faculties of the department have received fellowships and awards to get training from overseas universities to train up themselves and to spread out the knowledge among student community.

It is not only the effect of the faculties for all such success but it is the team spirit and the excellence of the students too. Students of microbiology are self sustained and receive individual fellowships including Dr. Kothari Postdoctoral, DST Fast track Young Scientist fellowship, CSIR Senior Research Fellowship, DST-INSPIRE fellowship, Non-SAP fellowship, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial fund, Rajeev Gandhi National Fellwoship, Maoulana Azad Minority fellowship, University Research Fellowship, and TNSCST minor projects for M.Sc students.

The research outcomes of the department are well evidenced by publication of several research papers in peer reviewed national and international journals with good impact factor. Not only in academics the department excels, has it showed an outstanding performance in extra curricular activities too. The department regularly organizes national level seminars, symposia, workshops, refresher courses, summer courses, DST-INSPIRE programs, entrepreneurship program for SC&ST populations. An annual intercollegiate meet- Cenitterz is being organized by the students every year since 2007. From all these progresses and growth it is well envisaged that the members of Microbiology Department are well sustained to outrival the competitive scientific world.

Mission:

To discover and pursue a competitive research in order to fulfill the global needs in microbiology.

Vision:

• To provide individual attention, high quality education and of character building for microbiology students.
• To pursue and promote world-class research and training at the frontiers of microbiology.
• To move up through International alliances and collaborative initiatives to achieve global excellence in Microbiology and Biotechnology