Department of Microbiology
University of Delhi South Campus

Department of Microbiology

The Department of Microbiology was established in 1984, and initially functioned in the University’s main campus at the Patel Chest Institute where classes for the M.Sc. Microbiology program were held. The M.Sc. program was initiated with the enrollment of five students each year. The current intake for this program is twelve students each year.

The Department shifted to South Campus in 1986 and became affiliated to the Faculty of Interdisciplinary and Applied Sciences upon its establishment in 1988. The same year the University also started a B.Sc.(Honours) program in Microbiology. The Microbiology Department started the Ph.D. program in 1988. Since then, more than one hundred students have carried out their doctoral research work in the Department, and have been awarded Ph.D degree under this program. Several of them now hold leadership positions in academia and industry.

The Department is now well established, with seven faculty members currently. Extramural grants from DBT, DST, ICMR, CSIR, UGC, ICAR and DRDO, as well as intramural grants from the University of Delhi, have strengthened the Department’s research. The Department has also been funded under the DST-FIST, UGC-SAP and DU-DST PURSE programs. Every faculty member has a well equipped laboratory with the necessary instruments to carry out research. The departmental Central Instrumentation Facility houses several pieces of high end equipments. Over the years, more than six hundred research papers have been authored by Department faculty members in peer-reviewed journals of international repute.

The students of the Microbiology Department are a vibrant group, enthusiastically organizing and participating in various activities of the Department such as Annual Sports Day, Monthly Journal Club, Monthly Work presentations, and Field Trips. Twenty-one students are currently registered in the Ph.D. program, and twenty-one students are presently enrolled in the Master’s program.