Banaras Hindu University has a very active research program. It produces four to five PhD holders and publishes 20-25 research papers every year

Established in 1986, the School of Biotechnology at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) is one of the first five MSc biotechnology programs in the country that was started with the DBT support. The course is based on semester system and evaluation is based on credit. The school is among the top 3 preferred MSc biotechnology programs in the country. School invites 15-20 eminent professors/scientists every year for interaction with students in the area of biotechnology/life sciences. Almost all the students qualify for NET/GATE and about 70-80 percent qualify for JRF. In total, the school has seven full-time faculties and 46 visiting faculties including six from the industry.

The school has a very active research programs in molecular microbiology, functional genomics, molecular and cellular immunology, tumor immunology, enzymology and plant biotechnology. Every year, it produces four to five PhD students and publishes 20-25 research papers. In view of its excellence in research, UGC and DST have identified the school under DRS (Phase II) and FIST (Phase I) support, respectively. The school has published over 50 papers in international journals between 2007 and 2009.

Last year, the school has become a part of the newly formed DBT-funded interdisciplinary School of Life Sciences under which a sum of 24 crore has been sanctioned. The school is also associated with DST PURSE scheme. The work for PhD program has also been introduced from the current semester. The School of Biotechnology has received research grants from both private and public sectors. It received 39.8 lakh from the industry and 3.85 crore from government agencies between 2007 and 2010.

The school has 18 labs dedicated to biotechnology. In terms of total capital expenditure, the cost on laboratory equipments came up to 63 lakh while the cost of consumables like reagents and biologicals came up to 55 lakh.

Research projects worth several lakhs were sanctioned for the department every year. On an average, two research papers are published by school every year. Last year, nine students completed PhD. One of the remarkable achievements of the School of Biotechnology at the Banaras Hindu University was the 100 percent qualification of the students in national test for fellowships last year. One of the former student of the school, Antima Goel, has received L'Oreal UNESCO Women in Science fellowship this year.