The Ph.D. program is designed around the research interest of individual faculties which is an integral part of the departmental academic activity. Research programs of the faculty using cutting-edge technology are focused on basic aspects of genetics, genomics, and molecular biology with direct implications for crop improvement and health/disease. Specific projects under the plant sciences include high-resolution mapping and marker-assisted breeding in mustard; development of pathogen and pest-resistant food crops using RNAi technology; understanding plant-pathogen interactions using conventional and contemporary OMICS approaches in Arabidopsis and Tobacco; and unraveling promoter architecture for regulation of transgene expression in plants. Biomedical research projects include the discovery of putative disease causal genes in common genetic disorders such as intellectual disability, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis etc using informative families and next-generation sequencing technologies and their functional characterization providing leads for novel therapeutics; determining molecular mechanisms underlying cellular toxicity and polyQ induced neurodegeneration in Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases using Drosophila as a model system; and epigenetic and molecular mechanisms in cancer stemness, progression, and therapy in gliomas and lung cancer. Projects on understanding cell signaling in stress and development with Dictyostelium as a test system; and how mitochondrial genetics and ribosomal synthesis/activity impact cell fates using yeast provide insights into important basic biological processes.