Department of Bio-Chemistry:
The Biochemistry department owes its origin to the vision of Dr. K. G. Naik, Professor of Chemistry Department, who recognized the importance of Biochemistry and donated to the university a sum of about Rs. 60,000/- presented to him on the occasion of his 60th birthday by friends and well-wishers, including former students to establish the department of Biochemistry. Accordingly, the department was established in 1955 and was appropriately named after him.
The department had a modest beginning in a small area of about 500 sq. mts. in the chemistry department from where it has grown to the present size of about 2500 sq. mts. Starting from first batch of just four M.Sc. students the department has grown immensely and now admits thirty five students annually. At any given time the department has about 35-40 research students actively engaged in research leading to Ph. D. degree. Many courses were introduced as per the need of the industries.
The Department of Biochemistry has grown to the stature of being one of the major centers for imparting Post-Graduate training since 1955. The department maintains its academic excellence by constantly renovating the teaching program by revising the syllabus, method of evaluation and the nature of dissertation projects of the students keeping in view the advancements in the field of Biochemistry.
Our department has been one of the few in the country to initiate research in advanced areas of Neuroscience and Nutritional Biochemistry. Moving with the rapid advances in Biochemistry, the faculty have oriented their research towards frontier areas like Cell and Molecular Biology. A high payment Master degree course in Medical Biotechnology was introduced in 2007 with capacity of 10 students. In recent past, the department also benefitted from infrastructure grants in form of DST-FIST and UGC-DRS program. Recently, with the initiative of the department, a new interdisciplinary research and teaching program was started in biological and pharmaceutical sciences under the aegis of Faculty of Science in 2010. Also recently, new young and dynamic faculty with expertise in frontier areas of biochemistry were recruited.