Chairman: Assoc. Prof. Svetoslav Dimov. PhD

Phone: (+359 2) 8167 342
E-mail: svetoslav@biofac.uni-sofia.bg

Brief history

The Department of Genetics was found with a decision of the Academic council of Sofia University in 1974. Till than Genetics was taught by the existing at that time Department of General Biology. The first lectures of Genetics were introduced in the academic year 1957/1958 - long before the foundation of the Faculty of Biology, and the practical exercises were introduced 10 years later in the academic year 1967/1968. Five doctoral thesis were defended within the last five years, and two more are currently developed.

Staff After its founding, the Department of Genetics grows rapidly in terms of personnel and research potential, and in the 80's it reaches an apogee - the staff comprises 1 Professor, 5 Associate Professors and 4 Assistant professors, all of them with a PhD degree. Nowadays the staff of the Department of Genetics comprises 11 persons:

The staff of Deparment Genetics, shortly after its foundation in the Botanical garden of Sofia University

Research topics

Currently the research activities within the Department are focused on the following topics:

1. Developmental genetics, neurogenetics and epigenetics with Drosophila melanogaster as model organism;

2. Molecular genetics and cytogenetics of cereal plants;

3. Molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis with Saccharomyces cerevisiae as model organism;

4. Molecular markers for determination of LAB and probiotics;

5. Bioinformatics;

6. Synthetic biology;

7. Construction of vectors for alternative cloning methods.

Practicals in Genetics	Practicals in Molecular Genetics	A collection of 912 lines is kept here and 22 are synthesized in the Department.

The research activities are organized in four specialized laboratories:

Laboratory of cytogenetics;
Laboratory of genetics of microorganisms;
Laboratory of molecular cloning
Laboratory of synthetic biology

Some of the major projects in the recent years of the Department are "Sustainable development of the Joint Genomic Center - JGC SusDev" financed by the NSF, one project in the frame of "Rila" Program for Bulgarian-French scientific cooperation, and also two ESF projects - " Support for the construction and development of young competitive research potential in the field of physiology, phytochemistry, genomics, proteomics and biodiversity of eukaryotic organisms " and "Implementation and use of new methods and approaches in the training of young researchers in the field of biophysics in order to increase their competitiveness and skills in applied fields such as agriculture, ecology and medicine".

Experimental work in the Genetics of Microorganisms lab

Practicals in Cytogenetics with students from the MSc programme in the Department

Master degree programs of the Department of Genetics

The staff of the Departments participate in three M.Sc. Programs taught in Bulgarian language:

Genetics and genomics.

Genetic and cellular engineering.

Molecular ecology.

The Department of Genetics is the first department within the Faculty of Biology who introduced a M.Sc. Program taught in English:

Genetics and genomics (taught in English)

Genetics and genomics (for non-specialists) - summer admission