Life Science is the scientific study associated with living organisms including microorganisms, plants, animals and human beings. It encompass both basic and advanced fields of science such as zoology, botany, cell biology, genetics, biochemistry, microbiology, molecular biology, immunology, environmental sciences, biophysics, bioinformatics, systems biology, biomedical technologies etc. The Department of Life Science at NIT Rourkela is envisioned to be a state-of-the-art department which emphasizes on the understanding of mechanisms of life processes at molecular and cellular levels in all living systems, which will pave the way towards deciphering the molecular mechanisms of the diseases and translation to patients.
The current research focus of the department includes cancer biology, epigenetics, apoptosis and autophagy in cancer, bioremediation, microbial ecology and marine biotechnology, food and bioprocess technology, development of nanoparticles for drug delivery, tissue engineering, proteostasis (protein folding/aggregation in presence of nanoparticle), functional genomics, stem cell biology encompassing cancer and pluripotent stem cells and regulatory RNA biology for deciphering biomolecular regulation at systems level. The pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries can hire students of life science for their R&D sectors.