Medical Biotechnology is one of the newly established departments at postgraduate level at University of Gondar with a mandate to train high caliber graduate students and researchers so as to carry out applied Biotechnology research and contribute to the staffing needs of these new institutions and hence to the development needs of the nation. Postgraduate training in Biotechnology began at University of Gondar with the launching of MSc. program in Medical Biotechnology stream in 2011. Since the initial launching, the teaching and research capacity of the Department gradually increased, thereby enabling the Department to currently expand its graduate program up to PhD level. The stream has become an independent and fully-fledged department to officially operate its work when the former Biotechnology department promoted to institute level in 2017.
Medical Biotechnology, also termed red Biotechnology, is the application of biological techniques to product research and development in healthcare and medicine. Breakthroughs in this and associated scientific fields have revolutionized the practice of medicine: newer and simpler tests for the more accurate diagnosis of disease; genetic and proteomic tests that allow for prevention of disease; more efficient methods for designing and making drugs that are targeted at the molecular level and therefore conceivably more effective but less toxic; the possibility of gene therapy to cure diseases that are previously incurable. The fulfillment of the vision of “individualized medicine”, where therapy can be tailored to disease of the individual seems to draw closer with each passing day. The discipline also includes the use of living cells and cell materials to research and produce pharmaceutical and diagnostic products that help treat and prevent human diseases. As a result of this, most medical biotechnologists work in academic or industrial settings.