Biotechnology

Biotechnology harnesses our scientific understanding of biology and chemistry to create products, processes, or services relevant to areas such as health, energy, agriculture, and the environment.  Biotechnology applications include the design and production of vaccines, the discovery of new antibiotics, genetic engineering of tissues, the design of disease and drought resistant crops, and clean-up of environmental pollutants. The discipline uses computers to model biological structures and processes as well as analyze and compare DNA and RNA sequences. Some of the cutting-edge technologies employed in biotechnology include CRISPR Cas9 gene editing systems, mass spectrometry, and Next Generation DNA sequencing.

The Honours Bachelors of Biotechnology program is offered in cooperation with the BC Institute of Technology (BCIT). You must complete a 30-credit first-year program at UBC before transferring to BCIT for two years. Then you return to UBC for two years of academic and co-op work terms. The program spans a range of scientific disciplines including microbiology, immunology, virology, cell biology, plant biology, bioinformatics, chemistry, and statistics.  The program also provides a solid foundation in business communications, accounting, and marketing.|You’ll take courses in the new state-of-the-art Biosciences Teaching building, the flagship Life Sciences Centre, and the Michael Smith Laboratories, the latter of which is named after the Nobel laureate and UBC professor Dr. Michael Smith.|The Honours Biotechnology degree provides the best of two educational worlds: UBC’s leading-edge biotechnology research and teaching, and BCIT’s hands-on laboratory training and foundational courses. Laboratory and lecture components of the program are uniquely integrated through the use of an experiential approach to learning.