Organisation : Biotech Consortium India Limited
Announcement : Syllabus
Name of Examination : DBT-JRF BET Junior Research Fellowship Biotech Eligibility Test
Download Syllabus : http://www.syllabus.gen.in/uploads/610-BET.pdf
Home Page : https://www.biotech.co.in/en
DBT-JRF BET Exam Syllabus :
General Comments :
Question paper will have two parts, Part-A (General aptitude & General Biotechnology) and Part-B (General plus specialized branches in Biotechnology). Part-A will have all compulsory 50 MCQ questions in General science, Mathematics, Chemistry, General aptitude, analytical, quantitative ability, general biotechnology etc.
Related : VIT University VITEEE Engineering Entrance Exam Chemistry Syllabus : www.syllabus.gen.in/599.html
There will be 150 questions in Part B, out of which only 50 questions need to be answered. Questions in Part B will also include general biotechnology in addition to the specialized areas listed below.
PART-A : Aptitude & General Biotechnology Aptitude
Questions may include Comprehension based, where a written paragraph is given for the students to read and then questions based on that paragraph is asked.
They may be designed to test non-verbal reasoning capacity (e.g., by finding the odd one out in a series of abstract pictures), they may also be of quantitative type; designed to test the students ability to comprehend large numbers and do simple calculations.
General Biotechnology :
1) Biomolecular structure and function :
a) Covalent structure of Amino acids, proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates and lipids.
b) Forces that stabilize bio molecules : electrostatic and van der Waal‟s interaction, hydrogen bonding. Interactions with solvents, Hydrophobic effect.
c) Protein Structure : Structural characteristics of helix, sheet and turn. Ramachandran plot. Protein domains and domain architecture. Quaternary structure of proteins.
d) Conformation of Nucleic acids : Structural characteristics of A, B and Z-DNA. 3D structure of t-RNA, ribozymes and riboswitches
e) Basic Thermodynamics : Laws of thermodynamics. Concepts of ∆G, ∆H and ∆S.
f) Physical properties of water and their role in biology. Concepts of pH, ionic strength and buffers.
g) Chemical kinetics : Concepts of order and molecularity of a chemical reaction. Derivation of first and second order rate equation, measurement of rate constants. Concept of activation energy.
h) Enzymology : Introduction to enzymes. Types of enzymatic reaction mechanisms, Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Competitive, Non-competitive and Un-competitive inhibition. Bi-substrate reaction kinetics. Allostery.
2) Methods in Biotechnology :
a) Concepts of precision and accuracy in experimental measurements. Concept of signal to noise ratio.
b) Biostatistics : Measures of Central Tendency. Fundamental ideas of probability and probability distributions: Binomial, Poisson and Gaussian distributions. Concept of the Central Limit Theorem. Hypothesis testing: Use of Student‟s t and 2 tests. Correlation and regression. Basic concepts of design of Experiments.
c) Biochemical Methods : Chromatography: Ion exchange, Gel Filtration and Affinity chromatography. Electrophoresis: Native and SDS-PAGE. Isoelectric focusing. 2D-PAGE and its applications.
d) UV/Vis spectrophotometry. Beer-Lambert‟s law and its use in determination of protein/ nucleic acid concentration.
e) Fluorescence Spectroscopy : Basic concepts of excitation and emission. Quenching, Stern-Volmer Plots. Theory and applications of FRET and fluorescence lifetime measurements.
f) Fundamentals of CD, IR and Raman spectroscopy and their use in the study of biomolecular conformation.
g) Centrifugation : Basic concepts of centrifugation. Calculation of g value from RPM. Density gradient centrifugation. Sedimentation velocity and Sedimentation equilibrium. Separation of sub-cellular components and macromolecules using high speed and ultracentrifugation.
h) Microscopy : Bright field, phase contrast, fluorescence, confocal, and electron microscopy.
i) Fundamentals of X-ray, NMR and cryo-electron microscopy for determination of biomolecular structure.
3) Organization of structure and functions of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells :
a) Cell wall and Cell Membrane : physical structure of model membranes in prokaryotes and eukaryotes, lipid bilayer, membrane proteins, other constituents; diffusion, osmosis, active transport, regulation of intracellular transport and electrical properties.
b) Structural organization and functions of cell organelles : nucleus, mitochondria, Golgi bodies, endoplasmic reticulum, lysosomes, Chloroplast, peroxisomes, vacuoles. Cytoskeletons structure and motility function.
c) Organization of genomes : genes and chromosomes, Operon, unique and repetitive DNA, interrupted genes, gene families, structure of chromatin and chromosomes, heterochromatin, euchromatin, transposons.
d) Cell division and cell cycle : Mitosis and meiosis, their regulation, Cell cycle and its regulation, Apoptosis, Necrosis and Autophagy.
e) Cell transformation and cancer, oncogenes and proto-oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, metastasis. Therapeutic interventions of uncontrolled cell growth.