Published on Mar 09, 2021 by Anup Naick
Gate 2021 Biotechnology Syllabus BT : https://gate.iitb.ac.in : Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) is a national examination, conducted jointly by Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore and seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) at Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkee on behalf of National Coordination Board (NCB)-GATE, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India. GATE examination is a Computer Based Test (CBT).
GATE 2021 will be conducted for 27 Subjects (also referred to as “papers”).
GATE 2021 examination will be conducted over six days and twelve sessions on Friday 5th, Saturday 6th, Sunday 7th, Friday 12th, Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th of February 2021.
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.
Biochemistry: Biomolecules - structure and function; Biological membranes - structure, membrane channels and pumps, molecular motors, action potential and transport processes; Basic concepts and regulation of metabolism of carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids and nucleic acids; Photosynthesis, respiration and electron transport chain. Enzymes - Classification, catalytic and regulatory strategies; Enzyme kinetics - Michaelis-Menten equation; Enzyme inhibition - competitive, non-competitive and uncompetitive inhibition.
Microbiology: Bacterial classification and diversity; Microbial Ecology - microbes in marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems; Microbial interactions; Viruses - structure and classification; Methods in microbiology; Microbial growth and nutrition; Nitrogen fixation; Microbial diseases and host-pathogen interactions; Antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance.
Immunology: Innate and adaptive immunity, humoral and cell mediated immunity; Antibody structure and function; Molecular basis of antibody diversity; T cell and B cell development; Antigen-antibody reaction; Complement; Primary and secondary lymphoid organs; Major histocompatibility complex (MHC); Antigen processing and presentation; Polyclonal and monoclonal antibody; Regulation of immune response; Immune tolerance; Hypersensitivity; Autoimmunity; Graft versus host reaction; Immunization and vaccines.
Genetics and Evolutionary Biology: Mendelian inheritance; Gene interaction; Complementation; Linkage, recombination and chromosome mapping; Extra chromosomal inheritance; Microbial genetics - transformation, transduction and conjugation; Horizontal gene transfer and transposable elements; Chromosomal variation; Genetic disorders; Population genetics; Epigenetics; Selection and inheritance; Adaptive and neutral evolution; Genetic drift; Species and speciation.
Cell Biology: Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell structure; Cell cycle and cell growth control; Cell- cell communication; Cell signaling and signal transduction; Post-translational modifications; Protein trafficking; Cell death and autophagy; Extra-cellular matrix.
Molecular Biology: Molecular structure of genes and chromosomes; Mutations and mutagenesis; Regulation of gene expression; Nucleic acid - replication, transcription, splicing, translation and their regulatory mechanisms; Non-coding and micro RNA; RNA interference; DNA damage and repair.
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.
Classical thermodynamics and Bioenergetics: Laws of thermodynamics; Solution thermodynamics; Phase equilibria, reaction equilibria; Ligand binding; Membrane potential; Energetics of metabolic pathways, oxidation and reduction reactions.
Transport Processes: Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, fluid flow - laminar and turbulent; Mixing in bioreactors, mixing time; Molecular diffusion and film theory; Oxygen transfer and uptake in bioreactor, kLa and its measurement; Conductive and convective heat transfer, LMTD, overall heat transfer coefficient; Heat exchangers.
Bioreaction engineering: Rate law, zero and first order kinetics; Ideal reactors - batch, mixed flow and plug flow; Enzyme immobilization, diffusion effects - Thiele modulus, effectiveness factor, Damkoehler number; Kinetics of cell growth, substrate utilization and product formation; Structured and unstructured models; Batch, fed-batch and continuous processes; Microbial and enzyme reactors; Optimization and scale up.
Upstream and Downstream Processing: Media formulation and optimization; Sterilization of air and media; Filtration - membrane filtration, ultrafiltration; Centrifugation - high speed and ultra; Cell disruption; Principles of chromatography - ion exchange, gel filtration, hydrophobic interaction, affinity, GC, HPLC and FPLC; Extraction, adsorption and drying.
Instrumentation and Process Control: Pressure, temperature and flow measurement devices; Valves; First order and second order systems; Feedback and feed forward control; Types of controllers – proportional, derivative and integral control, tuning of controllers.
Plants: Totipotency; Regeneration of plants; Plant growth regulators and elicitors; Tissue culture and cell suspension culture system - methodology, kinetics of growth and nutrient optimization; Production of secondary metabolites; 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.
Animals: 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 technology; Stem cell technology; Animal cloning; Transgenic animals; Knock-out and knock-in animals.
Microbes: Production of biomass and primary/secondary metabolites - Biofuels, bioplastics, industrial enzymes, antibiotics; Large scale production and purification of recombinant proteins and metabolites; Clinical-, food- and industrial- microbiology; Screening strategies for new products.
Recombinant DNA technology: Restriction and modification enzymes; Vectors - plasmids, bacteriophage and other viral vectors, cosmids, Ti plasmid, bacterial and yeast artificial chromosomes; Expression vectors; cDNA and genomic DNA library; Gene isolation and cloning, strategies for production of recombinant proteins; Transposons and gene targeting;
Molecular tools: Polymerase chain reaction; DNA/RNA labelling and sequencing; Southern and northern blotting; In-situ hybridization; DNA fingerprinting, RAPD, RFLP; Site-directed mutagenesis; Gene transfer technologies; CRISPR-Cas; Biosensing and biosensors.
Analytical tools: Principles of microscopy - light, electron, fluorescent and confocal; Principles of spectroscopy - UV, visible, CD, IR, fluorescence, FT-IR, MS, NMR; Electrophoresis; Micro- arrays; Enzymatic assays; Immunoassays - ELISA, RIA, immunohistochemistry; immunoblotting; Flow cytometry; Whole genome and ChIP sequencing.
Computational tools: Bioinformatics resources and search tools; Sequence and structure databases; Sequence analysis - sequence file formats, scoring matrices, alignment, phylogeny; Genomics, proteomics, metabolomics; Gene prediction; Functional annotation; Secondary structure and 3D structure prediction; Knowledge discovery in biochemical databases; Metagenomics; Metabolic engineering and systems biology.
A candidate may appear either in ONE or TWO subject papers. For candidates who choose TWO papers, the combination must be from the approved list of combinations and subject to the availability of infrastructure and date.
Environmental Science and Engineering (ES) and Humanities and Social Sciences (XH) are two new papers introduced in GATE-2021.
Particulars |
Details |
Examination Mode |
Computer Based Test (CBT) |
Duration |
3 Hours |
Number of Subjects (Papers) |
27 |
Sections |
General Aptitude (GA) + Candidate’s Selected Subject |
Type of Questions |
|
Questions test these abilities |
|
Number of Questions |
10 (GA) + 55 (subject) = 65 Questions |
Distribution of Marks in all Papers EXCEPT papers AR, CY, EY, GG, MA, PH, XH and XL |
General Aptitude: 15 Marks + Engineering Mathematics: 13 Marks + Subject Questions: 72 Marks = Total: 100 Marks |
Distribution of Marks in papers AR, CY, EY, GG, MA, PH, XH and XL |
General Aptitude: 15 Marks + Subject Questions: 85 Marks = Total: 100 Marks |
Marking Scheme |
All of the questions will be of 1 mark or 2 marks |
Paper Code |
General Aptitude (GA) Marks |
Subject Marks |
Total Marks |
Total Time (Minutes) |
AE, AR, AG, BT, CE, CH, CS, CY, EC, EE, ES, EY, IN, MA, ME, MN, MT, PE, PH, PI, TF, ST and BM |
15 |
85 |
100 |
180 |
GG [Part A + Part B (Section 1 Geology OR Section 2 Geophysics)] |
15 |
25 + 60 |
100 |
180 |
XE (Section A + Any TWO Sections) |
15 |
15 + (2 x 35) |
100 |
180 |
XH (Section B1 + Any ONE Section) |
15 |
25 + (1 x 60) |
100 |
180 |
XL (Section P + Any TWO Sections) |
15 |
25 + (2 x 30) |
100 |
180 |
Candidates opting to appear in TWO subject papers must have a primary choice of paper, which will be their default choice and second choice of paper, which has to be chosen from the allowed combinations. Combinations other than the listed ones are NOT allowed. Under unforeseen circumstances, GATE 2021 committee has the rights to remove certain combinations at a later date. In such case, the fee paid towards the second paper will be refunded to the candidates. Also note that the examination centre for candidate to appear for the second paper may be different (but in same city) from that for the first paper due to the infrastructure and scheduling constraints. GATE committee is NOT liable for any legal obligations related to this issue.
