In 1985, the then National Board of Biotechnology selected University of Pune as one of its five centres for imparting training in M.Sc. Biotechnology. Prof. S.P. Modak was its first Coordinator. Under the aegis of the Zoology Department, M.Sc. Biotechnology training course started in 1985 with the first batch of 20 students selected through an all India entrance examination, with teachers primarily from the Zoology Department, and supplemented by teachers from University departments of English, Chemistry and Botany, and by scientists from National Chemical Laboratory and National Institute of Virology, Pune. Besides this, number of other scientists from the country also contributed, even now, in teaching this course. This Department is grateful to them for all their help over a decade and half. This programme also included post-graduate training in M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Biotechnology with a broad based intake of students from related branches of science.
