Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh unveils India’s First Engineering Biology Course to Build Future Biotechnology Workforce

Prelims-testable facts

• 01The government of India has announced the introduction of a course in engineering biology, the first of its kind in the country.
• 02IITs and IISc have already submitted proposals for interdisciplinary programmes with medical institutions to support the new course.
• 03The Engineering Biology course aims to build an independent and sovereign biotechnology ecosystem capable of supporting India's long-term scientific, healthcare, and economic aspirations.
• 04India's bioeconomy has expanded from nearly USD 10 billion in 2014 to about USD 95 billion today.
• 05India is projected to reach a bioeconomy of nearly USD 300 billion by 2030.
• 06The country has developed the world's first DNA vaccine against COVID-19 and supplied vaccines to nearly 30 countries.
• 07Indigenous advances in CAR-T cell therapy and emerging gene-based therapies are making advanced treatments significantly more affordable in India.

Trap alerts

• Most people think that engineering biology is a new field, but actually it has been studied for decades in various forms.
• Most people think that the Engineering Biology course will only focus on medical applications, but actually it aims to build an ecosystem capable of supporting long-term scientific and economic aspirations.