Genetic Engineering

Hello Laasya,
Genetic Engineering is the manipulation of an organism's genome for advancing healthcare, medicine, agriculture, to name a few. Genetic engineering techniques involves introducing a foreign DNA into an organisms genome with the hope of altering its biological and chemical properties for accomplishing tasks such as treating diseases, producing higher quality and economical agricultural yields, advancing healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry.
Many students get confused between Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering. You can consider Genetic Engineering to be a subset of Biotechnology and students can specialize in Genetic Engineering while doing their undergraduate degree in Biotechnology.
Career options in this field:
Since Genetic Engineering is a highly research oriented field, a PhD degree is imperative if you want to climb up the ladder at work. PhD graduates usually go on to do their postdoctoral training and join university as professors or enter industry as research scientists. Students with just an undergraduate or masters degree can only work as research assistants or at best as lab managers. They cannot do independent research projects, lead a team of researchers or start their own lab. In short, if you are keen on making a name for yourself in this field, be prepared to do your PhD.
Genetic Engineering scientists and researchers usually find jobs in the research labs of universities and research institutions. Some even join the R&D section of biotech industries. Students with M.Tech or MSc degree in Genetic Engineering or Biotechnology with specialization in Genetic Engineering can find jobs in biotech and pharma companies or join universities as research assistants. Some universities in India also hire MTech/MSc students as lecturers.
Universities that offer Genetic Engineering courses in India:
Very few universities in India offer Genetic Engineering courses and they are as follows
SRM University [B.Tech, M.Tech and PhD in Genetic Engineering]
Bharath University, Chennai [M.Tech in Genetic Engineering]
Aryabhatta Knowledge University, Patna [B.Tech and MTech in Genetic Engineering]
Genetic Engineering must not be confused with Genetics course offered by various universities at the BSc/MSc level. The genetics course is pure sciences based and involves the study of pure genetics and not genetic engineering methods and techniques.
I hope this answers your question. If you have any further questions, kindly revert.