Department of BioAgricultural Sciences
Characteristics:
The goal of this Department, which offers B.S. M. S and Ph.D. degree, is the application of biotechnologies that modify the existing agricultural systems to improve the productivity and quality of agricultural products. Therefore the faculties in the Department have expertise in both molecular biology and agricultural science, and the students are expected to acquire knowledge in molecular biology and biotechnology. The technologies of gene manipulation are the foci, and facilities for biotechnology, nucleotide and protein technologies are well equipped in the Department. Researches on basic science and application of molecular biology are both emphasized, for example, application of basic knowledge in production of transgenic mouse and plant with improvement is one of the main research interests. The ultimate goal of the Department is to lay a solid foundation for the development of advanced agriculture in
Faculty:
There are 11 faculty members in this Department right now. They all hold Ph.D. degree in various fields of biology.
Core courses:
All undergraduate students are required to complete 128 credits. The core courses offered in the Department are: molecular biology, gene manipulation, cell culture, biotechnology, and applied genetics, particularly, most of the core courses with laboratory.
All postgraduate students of M.S. and Ph.D. programs are required to complete 30 and 36 credits, respectively. The core courses offered in the program are: technology of gene manipulation, nucleotide and protein technology, advanced molecular biology.
Future development:
At present, transgenic technologies are the major research interests .However, we have begun to cover the area of genomics, proteomics, microarray, biological imaging and metabolomics in this Department. Besides the basic studies of biological processes and improvement of crops and animals, molecular farming for production of pharmaceuticals is added too.
Others:
The aims of this Department are to integrate the advanced biotechnologies into agricultural science and related fields of biological sciences. Therefore, we will pay more attentions to the latest developed biotechnologies and potential use of these technologies.