Department of Biotechnology

Biotechnology is expected to play a key role in the developmental process and economic growth of Nagaland. The Northeastern region in general and Nagaland in particular is a rich genetic treasure house of plants, insects and microbial resources. The region is one of the 12 mega-biodiversity rich zones of the world and forms a distinctive part of the Indo-Burma Hotspot that ranks 8th among the 25 biodiversity hotspot of the world.

This Department looks at this great opportunity and plans to record the Biotechnological innovation which has naturally occurred in order to take advantage of some specific characteristics or features. Further to make new formulation in the area of health care, attempts will be made to create a genetic database of rare genes which may have been lost in the rest of the world but still occurring in Nagaland for the benefit of this state. One of the prime focuses of this Department would be the conservation and preservation of medicinally and floriculturally important rare and endangered plants of this region.

The Department has a plan to open a Bioinformatics Center in the near future. The Department is in the process of creating a state- of- the- art laboratory to cater advanced biotechnological skills to the students. The Biotechnology lab is already equipped with modern biotechnological tools like PCR Thermal Cycle, Horizontal Electrophoresis Systems, Vertical Slab Gel Systems (Mini model), Vertical Slab Gel Systems ( Slab Gel Regular Model), Transilluminator, Horizontal air flow cabinet, BOD, Deep freezer etc. This Department in collaboration with Department of Biotechnology, GOI is undertaking a project for the production and utilization of quality planting materials of five economically important horticultural crops of this region.