GateBiotech Test Series Topics

S.No.	Section/Unit

A.	General Biology (Section)

i)	Biochemistry
	Biomolecules structure and function
	Membrane, action potential, transport
	Enzyme, kinetics
	Metabolism
	Photosynthesis, respiration, electron transport chain

ii)	Microbiology
	Viruses, microbial classification, diversity
	Methods in microbiology
	Respiration, nitrogen fixation
	Host pathogen interaction, disease causing microorganisms, antibiotics mode of action

iii)	Immunology
	History, Innate, humoral, cell mediated, organs and cells of immunity
	Ag, Ab structure, function, antibody diversity generation, secretion
	MHC, Autoimmunity, Graft rejection biology, Hypersensitivity reactions
	Monoclonal, polyclonal Ab generation, ELISA, RIA

B.	Genetics, Cellular and Molecular Biology (Section)

iv)	Genetics and Evolutionary Biology
	Structure of genes, chromosomes, mutation, mutagenesis
	Replication, transcription, translation (prokaryotic and eukaryotic), operons and operon mutants
	Mendelian inheritance, Complementation
	Linkage, recombination, chromosome mapping, extrachromosomal inheritance
	Microbial genetics, transposons
	DNA damage, repair, genetic diseases, inheritance
	Population genetics [Epigenetics; Selection and inheritance; Adaptive and neutral evolution; Genetic drift; Species and speciation.]

v)	Cell Biology
	Cell structure, prokaryotic, eukaryotic
	Cell cycle, mitosis, meiosis, cell growth, control

	Cell signalling and signal transduction
	Cell death and autophagy; Extra-cellular matrix.

vi)	Molecular biology and genetics
	Structure of genes, chromosomes, mutation, mutagenesis
	Replication, transcription, translation (prokaryotic and eukaryotic) [Regulation mechanism, non-coding RNA, operons and operon mutants]
	DNA damage and repair

C.	Fundamentals of Biological Engineering (Section)

vii)	Engineering principles applied to biological systems:
	Material and energy balances [for reactive and non-reactive systems; Recycle, bypass and purge processes]
	Stoichiometry of growth and product formation [Degree of reduction, electron balance, theoretical oxygen demand]

viii)	Classical thermodynamics and Bioenergetics:
	Thermodynamics and Ligand binding [Laws of thermodynamics; Solution thermodynamics; Phase equilibria, reaction equilibria]
	Bioenergetics [Membrane potential; Energetics of metabolic pathways, oxidation and reduction reactions]

ix)	Transport Processes:
	Fluid flow, Mixing in Bioreactors [Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, fluid flow – laminar and turbulent, mixing time]
	Molecular diffusion and film theory [Oxygen transfer and uptake in bioreactor, kLa and its measurement]
	Heat Transfer [Conductive and convective heat transfer, LMTD, overall heat transfer coefficient; Heat exchangers]

D.	Bioprocess Engineering and Process Biotechnology (Section)

x)	Bioreaction engineering:
	Rate law, Ideal reactors and enzyme immobilization

	[zero and first order kinetics; Ideal reactors – batch, mixed flow and plug flow; Enzyme immobilization, diffusion effects – Thiele modulus, effectiveness factor, Damkoehler number]
	Cell growth kinetics [Kinetics of cell growth, substrate utilization and product formation; Structured and unstructured models]
	Processes and scale up [Batch, fed-batch and continuous processes; Microbial and enzyme reactors; Optimization and scale up]

xi)	Upstream and Downstream Processing:
	Upstream processing [Media formulation and optimization; Sterilization of air and media; Filtration – membrane filtration, ultrafiltration; Centrifugation – high speed and ultra; Cell disruption]
	Downstream processing [Principles of chromatography – ion exchange, gel filtration, hydrophobic interaction, affinity, GC, HPLC and FPLC; Extraction, adsorption and drying]

xii)	Instrumentation and Process Control:
	Instrumentation [Pressure, temperature and flow measurement devices; Valves; First order and second order systems]
	Process control [Feedback and feed forward control; Types of controllers – proportional, derivative and integral control, tuning of controllers]

E.	Plant, Animal and Microbial Biotechnology (Section)

xiii)	Plants:
	Regeneration, tissue culture and kinetics of growth [Totipotency; Regeneration of plants; Plant growth regulators and elicitors; Tissue culture and cell suspension culture system – methodology, kinetics of growth and nutrient optimization]
	Plant secondary metabolites, artificial seeds and protoplast fusion [Production, Hairy root culture; Plant products of industrial importance; Artificial seeds; Somaclonal variation; Protoplast, protoplast fusion – somatic hybrid and cybrid]
	Transgenic plants [direct and indirect methods of gene transfer techniques; Selection marker and reporter gene; Plastid transformation]

xiv)	Animals:

	Animal cell culture [Culture media composition and growth conditions; Animal cell and tissue preservation; Anchorage and non-anchorage dependent cell culture; Kinetics of cell growth]
	Micro & macro carrier culture, hybridoma and stem cell technology [Animal cloning; Transgenic animals; Knock-out and knock-in animals]

xv)	Microbes:
	Food and Industrial microbiology [Production of biomass and primary/secondary metabolites – Biofuels, bioplastics, industrial enzymes, antibiotics; Large scale production and purification of recombinant proteins and metabolites; Clinical, Screening strategies for new products]

F.	Recombinant DNA technology and Other Tools in Biotechnology (Section)

xvi)	Recombinant DNA technology:
	Enzymes and vectors [Restriction and modification enzymes; Vectors – plasmids, bacteriophage and other viral vectors, cosmids, Ti plasmid, bacterial and yeast artificial chromosomes; Expression vectors]
	DNA library, expression, transposons and gene targeting [cDNA and genomic DNA library; Gene isolation and cloning, strategies for production of recombinant proteins]

xvii)	Molecular tools:
	PCR, NA sequencing and blotting [DNA/RNA labelling and sequencing; Southern and northern blotting; In-situ hybridization]
	DNA fingerprinting, CRISPR-Cas and biosensors [RAPD, RFLP; Site-directed mutagenesis; Gene transfer technologies]

xviii)	Analytical tools:
	Microscopy and spectroscopy [light, electron, fluorescent and confocal microscopy; UV, visible, CD, IR, fluorescence, FT-IR, MS, NMR spectroscopy]
	Electrophoresis, Immunoassays and flow cytometry [Micro-arrays; Enzymatic assays, ELISA, RIA, immunohistochemistry; immunoblotting, Whole genome and ChIP sequencing]

xix)	Computational tools:

	Search tools, sequence and structure databases [Sequence analysis – sequence file formats, scoring matrices, alignment, phylogeny]
	Genomics, proteomics and metabolomics [Gene prediction; Functional annotation; Secondary structure and 3D structure prediction; Knowledge discovery in biochemical databases; Metagenomics; Metabolic engineering and systems biology]

G.	Engineering Mathematics & GA

xx)	Linear Algebra: Matrices and determinants; Systems of linear equations; Eigen values and Eigen vectors.
	Calculus: Limits, continuity and differentiability; Partial derivatives, maxima and minima; Sequences and series; Test for convergence.
	Differential Equations: Linear and nonlinear first order ODEs, higher order ODEs with constant coefficients; Cauchy’s and Euler’s equations; Laplace transforms.
	Probability and Statistics: Mean, median, mode and standard deviation; Random variables; Poisson, normal and binomial distributions; Correlation and regression analysis.
	Numerical Methods: Solution of linear and nonlinear algebraic equations; Integration by trapezoidal and Simpson’s rule; Single step method for differential equations.

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GateBiotech Test Series Topics