The School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad emerged as the number one public biotech school in India in 2007 followed by Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB), Trivandrum, according to an industry survey carried out CyberMedia group's BioSpectrum magazine in its recent issue.

Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai held the fourth position and University School of Biotechnology, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University ranked fifth, revealed the fourth annual survey of 200 public and private institutes conducted out by BioSpectrum magazine, an offering of the Cybermedia group of publications. 

In the last year's survey RGCB, Trivandrum ranked first while School of Life Sciences, Hyderabad was at second position. National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, fell to the sixth place this year from number three last year while Department of Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology, IIT, Delhi which was at number five last year failed to make it to the top 10 list this year.

The fourth BioSpectrum study includes ranking of schools offering B.Tech, Masters and PhD programs but not BSc programs for the academic year 2006-07. The survey says that the need for trained manpower in the biotech space has increased as the industry has grown 35 percent year on year for the last four years. 

The study was conducted during November-December 2007. To maintain objectivity, BioSpectrum based its methodology on measurable and quantifiable data - faculty, industry interface, infrastructure and placements. 

Commenting on the results of BioSpectrum Biotech School Survey 2008 Mr. Narayanan Suresh, Group Editor of BioSpectrum (India and Asia) said, "India needs biotech schools with state-of-the art facilities that produce biotech students for the industry.

"Vast opportunities exist in the biotechnology field with specialisation in areas like clinical research and manufacturing, field testing of GM crops, regulatory affairs such as IPR and biosafety, consultancy for business planning and global collaborations," he added. 

The two most important parameters to rank the schools were faculty and infrastructure with nearly two third weightage in the overall ranking while industry interface and placement had a weightage of 16% each.

RCGB, Trivandrum had the best infrastructure among the public biotech schools followed by JNU, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and Animal Biotechnology Centre, National Dairy Research Institute. Infrastructure of schools, with 34% weightage in the overall ranking, included expenditure on library and lab equipment and no of personal computers per biotech student.

Teaching staff ranks best at University of Hyderabad 
The teaching staff was graded on the basis of faculty per student, qualifications, experience, number of publications in national and international journals and patents filed or granted. University of Hyderabad, Institute of Chemical Technology and RGCB were the top three in this category.

MS University of Baroda tops in Placements
The Department of Microbiology & Biotechnology, MS University of Baroda had the highest placement score though it ranked tenth overall. University of Hyderabad ranked fifth in this parameter lower than University School of Biotechnology at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University at number two and JNU at number three.

Industry Interaction gets top score at University of Hyderabad
Industry interaction was measured on the basis of products developed by the institute which were in production, number of projects sponsored by industry and government and royalty inflow. The top three institutes in this category were University of Hyderabad, Institute of Chemical Technology and JNU. 

RCGB, Trivandrum and GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar's Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering department were at number four and five respectively. 

List of Top 19 Public Biotech Schools

• Rank 1: University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad

• Rank 2: Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi

• Rank 3: Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB), Trivandrum

• Rank 4: Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai

• Rank 5: Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi

• Rank 6: National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal

• Rank 7: GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pant Nagar

• Rank 8: University of Kashmir, Hazaratbal

• Rank 9: Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi

• Rank 10: The Maharaja Sayaji Rao University of Baroda, Vadoda

• Rank 11: Department of Biotechnology, University of Jammu, Jammu

• Rank 12: Department of Biosciences, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi

• Rank 13: Department of Microbiology, Bangalore University, Bangalore

• Rank 14: Department of Plant Molecular Biology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore

• Rank 15: Department of Biotechnology, Government Science College, Bangalore

• Rank 16: Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tezpur University, Tezpur

• Rank 17: Department of Biotechnology, Kumaun University, Nainital

• Rank 18: Department of Microbiology, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad

• Rank 19: Department of Biotechnology, Burdwan University, Burdwan

About CyberMedia
CyberMedia, now in its 25 th year, is South Asia's first and largest specialty media house, with fifteen publications (including Dataquest, DQ Channels and DQ Week, PCQuest, Voice&Data, Global Services and DARE) in the infotech, telecom, consumer electronics, biotech and entrepreneurship areas, and is a media value chain including Internet ( www.ciol.com), events and television. The group's media services include market research (IDC India), job board (CyberMedia Tech Job portal), content management, multimedia, and media education. 

CyberMedia also publishes BioSpectrum Asia from Singapore and Global Services from the USA , the first Indian magazine titles to be published from outside the country for a global audience. 

For media inquiries, please contact: :
At Strategic Communications and PR 
Sanjiv Kataria
+ 91 98100 48095
Sanjiv.kataria@gmail.com 

At CyberMedia: 
Ch. Srinivas Rao, 
Executive Editor, BioSpectrum 
+ 91 98455 80279 
srinivasch@cybermedia.co.in