GATE BT syllabus 2026

• Matrices and determinants
• Systems of linear equations
• Eigen values and Eigen vectors.

• Limits, continuity and differentiability
• Partial derivatives, maxima and minima
• Sequences and series
• Test for convergence.

• Linear and nonlinear first order ODEs, higher order ODEs with constant coefficients
• Cauchy’s and Euler’s equations
• Laplace transforms.

• Mean, median, mode and standard deviation
• Random variables
• Poisson, normal and binomial distributions
• Correlation and regression analysis.

• Solution of linear and nonlinear algebraic equations
• Integration by trapezoidal and Simpson’s rule
• Single step method for differential equations.

• Biomolecules - structure and function
• Biological membranes - structure, membrane channels and pumps, molecular motors, action potential and transport processes
• Basic concepts and regulation of metabolism of carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids and nucleic acids
• Photosynthesis, respiration and electron transport chain. Enzymes - Classification, catalytic and regulatory strategies
• Enzyme kinetics - Michaelis-Menten equation
• Enzyme inhibition - competitive, non-competitive and uncompetitive inhibition.

• Bacterial classification and diversity
• Microbial Ecology - microbes in marine, fresh water and terrestrial ecosystems
• Microbial interactions
• Viruses - structure and classification
• Methods in microbiology
• Microbial growth and nutrition
• Nitrogen fixation
• Microbial diseases and host-pathogen interactions
• Antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance.

• Innate and adaptive immunity, humoral and cell mediated immunity
• Antibody structure and function
• Molecular basis of antibody diversity
• T cell and B cell development
• Antigen-antibody reaction
• Complement
• Primary and secondary lymphoid organs
• Major histocompatibility complex (MHC)
• Antigen processing and presentation
• Polyclonal and monoclonal antibody
• Regulation of immune response
• Immune tolerance
• Hypersensitivity
• Autoimmunity
• Graft versus host reaction
• Immunization and vaccines.

• Mendelian inheritance
• Gene interaction
• Complementation
• Linkage, recombination and chromosome mapping
• Extra chromosomal inheritance
• Microbial genetics - transformation, transduction and conjugation
• Horizontal gene transfer and transposable elements
• Chromosomal variation
• Genetic disorders
• Population genetics
• Epigenetics
• Selection and inheritance
• Adaptive and neutral evolution
• Genetic drift
• Species and speciation.

• Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell structure
• Cell cycle and cell growth control
• Cell-cell communication
• Cell signaling and signal transduction
• Post-translational modifications
• Protein tracking
• Cell death and autophagy
• Extra-cellular matrix.

• Molecular structure of genes and chromosomes
• Mutations and mutagenesis
• Regulation of gene expression
• Nucleic acid - replication, transcription, splicing, translation and their regulatory mechanisms
• Non-coding and micro RNA
• RNA interference
• DNA damage and repair.

• Material and energy balances for reactive and non-reactive systems
• Recycle, bypass and purge processes
• Stoichiometry of growth and product formation
• Degree of reduction, electron balance and theoretical oxygen demand.

• Laws of thermodynamics
• Solution thermodynamics
• Phase equilibria, reaction equilibria
• Ligand binding
• Membrane potential
• Energetics of metabolic pathways, oxidation and reduction reactions.

• Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, fluid flow - laminar and turbulent
• Mixing in bioreactors, mixing time
• Molecular diffusion and film theory
• Oxygen transfer and uptake in bioreactor, kLa and its measurement
• Conductive and convective heat transfer, LMTD, overall heat transfer coefficient
• Heat exchangers.

• Rate law, zero and first order kinetics
• Ideal reactors - batch, mixed flow and plug flow
• Enzyme immobilization, diffusion effects - Thiele modulus, effectiveness factor, Damkoehler number
• Kinetics of cell growth, substrate utilization and product formation
• Structured and unstructured models
• Batch, fed-batch and continuous processes
• Microbial and enzyme reactors
• Optimization and scale up.

• Media formulation and optimization
• Sterilization of air and media
• Filtration - membrane filtration, ultrafiltration
• Centrifugation - high speed and ultra
• Cell disruption
• Principles of chromatography - ion exchange, gel filtration, hydrophobic interaction, affinity, GC, HPLC and FPLC
• Extraction, adsorption and drying.

• Pressure, temperature and flow measurement devices
• Valves
• First order and second order systems
• Feedback and feed forward control
• Types of controllers – proportional, derivative and integral control, tuning of controllers.

• Totipotency
• Regeneration of plants
• Plant growth regulators and elicitors
• Tissue culture and cell suspension culture system - methodology, kinetics of growth and nutrient optimization
• Production of secondary metabolites
• Hairy root culture
• Plant products of industrial importance
• Artificial seeds
• Somaclonal variation
• Protoplast, protoplast fusion - somatic hybrid and cybrid
• Transgenic plants - direct and indirect methods of gene transfer techniques
• Selection marker and reporter gene
• Plastid transformation.

• Culture media composition and growth conditions
• Animal cell and tissue preservation
• Anchorage and non-anchorage dependent cell culture
• Kinetics of cell growth
• Micro & macro-carrier culture
• Hybridoma technology
• Stem cell technology
• Animal cloning
• Transgenic animals
• Knock-out and knock-in animals.

• Production of biomass and primary/secondary metabolites - Biofuels, bioplastics, industrial enzymes, antibiotics
• Large scale production and purification of recombinant proteins and metabolites
• Clinical-, food- and industrial- microbiology
• Screening strategies for new products.

• Restriction and modification enzymes
• Vectors - plasmids, bacteriophage and other viral vectors, cosmids, Ti plasmid, bacterial and yeast artificial chromosomes
• Expression vectors
• cDNA and genomic DNA library
• Gene isolation and cloning, strategies for production of recombinant proteins
• Transposons and gene targeting.

• Polymerase chain reaction
• DNA/RNA labeling and sequencing
• Southern and northern blotting
• In-situ hybridization
• DNA fingerprinting, RAPD, RFLP
• Site-directed mutagenesis
• Gene transfer technologies
• CRISPR-Cas
• Biosensing and biosensors.

• Principles of microscopy - light, electron, fluorescent and confocal
• Principles of spectroscopy - UV, visible, CD, IR, fluorescence, FT-IR, MS, NMR
• Electrophoresis
• Micro-arrays
• Enzyme assays
• Immunoassays - ELISA, RIA, immunohistochemistry
• immunoblotting
• Flow cytometry
• Whole genome and ChIP sequencing.

• Bioinformatics resources and search tools
• Sequence and structure databases
• Sequence analysis - sequence file formats, scoring matrices, align, phylogeny
• Genomics, proteomics, metabolomics
• Gene prediction
• Functional annotation
• Secondary structure and 3D structure prediction
• Knowledge discovery in biochemical databases
• Metagenomics
• Metabolic engineering and systems biology.

• Basic English grammar: tenses, articles, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, verb-noun agreement, and other parts of speech
• Basic vocabulary: words, idioms, and phrases in context
• Reading and comprehension, Narrative sequence.

• Data interpretation: data graphs (bar graphs, pie charts, and other graphs representing data), 2- and 3-dimensional plots, maps, and tables
• Numerical computation and estimation: ratios, percentages, powers, exponents and logarithms, permutations and combinations, and series
• Mensuration and geometry
• Elementary statistics and probability.

Logic: deduction and induction, Analogy, Numerical relations and reasoning.

• Transformation of shapes: translation, rotation, scaling, mirroring, assembling, and grouping
• paper folding, cutting, and patterns in 2 and 3 dimensions.