History 

 Department of Biophysics on its inception in November 1962 started functioning with a plan for four divisions; 1)  Electron Microscopy, 2) Electrophysiology, 3) Medical Physics and 4) Instrumentation. An Assistant Professor  of Electron Microscopy, who was also the Head of the Department, left PGI in November, 1965 and the Division of Electron Microscopy alongwith the post of Assistant Professor was transferred to Pathology Department in 1971-72.  The post of Lecturer (Medical Physics), was transferred to Radiotherapy Department.  Later an Assistant Professor of Electro-physiology who was then the Head of the Department, left in 1971 for USA.  Besides that, the Radioisotope Division which was started in 1969 served as a regional center for the neighboring states of U.P., Punjab, Haryana, J & K and Himachal Pradesh.  This was made possible by the hard work and devotion of the faculty members of Biophysics Department, who brought Nuclear Medicine discipline in this Institute known at national as well as international level.  This is witnessed by the fact that members of this department were elected as the President, Secretary and unfortunately, this was also made a separate Department of Nuclear Medicine in 1989. At present the department is concentrating activities in the field of free radical research, cancer research, radiation biology, molecular markers, diagnosis of diseases by radioisotopic breath tests, spectroscopy, computer simulation etc. Department provides routine service of Breath test for H-pylori detection and centralized supply, monitoring etc. of unsealed radioisotopes for whole of the Institute. Research work was carried out in late sixties and early seventies  on  fabrication and performance characteristics of collimators  for obtaining better radioisotopic scanning images.  Department developed an instrument for chemiluminescence for estimation of free radical activities in bio-materials. Department is the first in the country to  find role of opioids in the pathophysiology of spinal injuries, and to develop application of various radioactive substrates for the detection of a variety of gastrointestinal  diseases using breath tests. Department provide service to patients for detection of Helicobacter pylori infection by  using radioactive 14-C-breath tests and subsequently follow up of these cases after appropriate treatment. Department has produced more than  25 Ph.D’s  and  the faculty has guided a large number of /MD/MS thesis .