The Department of Biotechnology of Huazhong University of Science & Technology was founded in 1998. It was developed originally from the Department of bioengineering founded in 1981 in Huazhong Institute of Technology. The Department of Biotechnology has made significant achievements during the past 40 years. Nowadays, the Biotechnology specialty was national characteristic specialty and brand specialty of Hubei province with synthetic biology and industrial biotechnology characteristics. Biotechnology specialty was selected as specialty construction of first class undergraduate specialty by Ministry of Education.
The Department of Biotechnology have established a world-leading multi-disciplinary research platform, have outstanding teaching staff including of high-level Talents of National Special Support Plan, Master teacher of Hubei Province, Master teacher of Hubei Jingchu project and the prominent educator of the University. The faculty members who have undertook major research projects of core national research plans, such as Major Project of National Science and Technology，the projects of “973” and “863”. The Scientific results were obtained the Major scientific and Technological Achievements Award of Ministry of Science and Technology, Gold medal of Geneva International Invention Exhibition and First prize of scientific and technological progress in Hubei.
The main research areas of the Department of Biotechnology were including of Synthetic biology and Biotechnology, Bio-resource Technology and Green manufacturing, Research interests of Institute of bioenergy and ecology, Plant Biotechnology and multi-omics design breeding, Biodegradation and bioconversion of biomass and xenobiotics, Discovery and application of novel enzymes from marine viruses, Microbes and host crosstalk in gut environment. Lots of new progresses were obtained, and more than 800 articles were published in SCI journals and Chinese journals, more than 200 patents were also obtained and some of them were realized the industrialization in past ten years.
The department of Biotechnology was also constructed the talent-cultivation system from undergraduate to post-doctoral students, which was focus on the science and engineering cross of medical and strengthening practice. The teachers were in charge of about 15 courses, including of some high-quality courses, such as, Biochemistry (national bilingual demonstration program), Fermentation Engineering (national level excellent course), General Biology and cytology (provincial excellent course). The related teaching reform in education have obtained national teaching achievement award, provincial teaching achievement award. The student research teams of iGEM HUST-China, BIOMOD HUST-China were achieved gold and silver medals for many times, the students were mainly from department of Biotechnology.
