IIT JAM Biotechnology case studies
IIT JAM Biotechnology · Put your knowledge to work in context.
JAM Biotechnology (BT) is one of the subject papers of the Joint Admission Test for Masters, the national entrance examination through which the Indian Institutes of Technology and IISc Bangalore admit candidates to postgraduate science programmes. JAM has been conducted since 2004 and is organised in rotation by the IITs; the source records IIT Guwahati for 2023, IIT Madras for 2024, IIT Delhi for 2025 and IIT Bombay for 2026, with the JAM office page linking onward for 2027. The IIT JAM Biotechnology case studies are 5 cases and about 3,561 words.
1Inhibitor Choice When Substrate Concentration Is Fixed by Substrate Inhibition
A thermophilic amidase (Vmax 120 µmol min⁻¹ mg⁻¹, Km 0.40 mM for its acyl substrate) is being characterised for an industrial deacylation step. The enzyme is strongly substrate-inhibited above 0.15 mM, so all kinetic work must be done at a fixed free-substrate concentration of 0.10 mM.
699 words, about 3 min2Directional Cloning into pEX-2 with a Dam-Blocked Site and High Background
The 1.4 kb open reading frame of a bacterial lipase is to be cloned into the 5.2 kb expression vector pEX-2 (ampicillin resistance, ColE1 origin). The multiple cloning site contains unique sites in the order EcoRI, KpnI, BamHI, XbaI, HindIII; a lac promoter lies upstream of the site and a His6 tag downstream of HindIII.
744 words, about 4 min3PCR Optimisation, Genomic Contamination and a Low-Molecular-Weight Smear
A 2.4 kb cDNA fragment from a human gene is to be amplified both for cloning and for a semi-quantitative expression assay. Pair A consists of a 22-nucleotide forward primer with 10 G+C residues and a 20-nucleotide reverse primer with 12 G+C residues.
765 words, about 4 min4Purification Table Judgement and an 80 kDa/160 kDa Mass Discrepancy
A 500 mg sample of crude lysate from an E. coli strain expressing an N-terminally His6-tagged dehydrogenase contains 25,000 U of activity.
697 words, about 3 min5Screening ELISA: Predictive Values and a Negative Result in Advanced Disease
A hospital laboratory is evaluating a one-step sandwich ELISA for a tumour marker. In a validation panel of 1000 samples with disease status confirmed by imaging, the assay detected 92 of the 100 true cases and gave 108 false positives among the 900 disease-free samples.
656 words, about 3 min