The development and establishment of the Department of Plant Physiology and Molecular Biology took place at the Botanical Institute of the Faculty of Philosophy, and later the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Belgrade, in the first half of the 20th century. The Department of Plant Physiology, as an organizational unit of the Institute of Botany and the Botanical Garden, was founded in the academic year 1971/72, and the elective group of orientation courses, i.e. the Plant Physiology course organized by this department, began its work in the academic year 1977/78. The initiators of research and teaching in the field of plant physiology were renowned botanists Professor Nedeljko Košanin and Professor Ljubiša Glišić, whose doctoral theses were in that field of botany. Prof. Glišić was the first to teach Plant Physiology as his main course at the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Belgrade. According to the testimonies of his closest associates, he recognized the prospects of plant physiology as an experimental botanical discipline and predicted its rapid development in the future. Among the associates and teachers of Professor Glišić were Mirjana Nešković, Zvonimir Damjanović, Ljubinka Ćulafić, Gordana Naunović and Radomir Konjević, later full professors at the Faculty of Plant Sciences and the Faculty of Biology. In collaboration with colleagues from the Institute for Biological Research, Dr. Ljiljana Radojević and Dr. Dragoljub Grubišić, who were also full professors at the Faculty of Biology, they laid the foundations of the “Belgrade school” of plant physiology. Prof. has special merit in the development of the Department and Plant Physiology in Serbia. Nešković, the first head of the newly established Department, which expanded and, through work with students and colleagues from other institutions, managed to raise this field of botany in Serbia and the region to a higher scientific level. The Department currently has 11 members and organizes teaching at all levels of study at the Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade. In 2023, in accordance with the scientific field in which the teachers and associates work, the name of the Department was changed to the Department of Plant Physiology and Molecular Biology (KFMBB).

The Department of Plant Physiology and Molecular Biology is located at the Institute of Botany and the Botanical Garden "Jevremovac" and the Department of Plant Physiology organizes teaching at all levels of study at the Faculty of Biology, in all study groups.

Mandatory courses in basic studies: Fundamentals of Plant Physiology (Biology module), Plant Physiology for the modules Molecular Biology and Physiology and Ecology and Environmental Protection, Physiology of Plant Growth and Development (Biology module). In addition to the mandatory courses, KFMBB organizes 6 elective courses in basic studies.

At the master's degree level, KFMBB teaches two modules, Plant Physiology and Biotechnology and Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, which have a total of 5 mandatory and 5 elective courses.

In the doctoral studies of Biology, the KFMBB organizes teaching in the module Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants, i.e. in 2 mandatory and 4 elective courses.

The courses organized by KFMBB are in the fields of plant physiology, stress physiology, light and hormonal regulation of growth and development, in vitro plant culture, plant biotechnology, plant secondary metabolism, seed physiology, photosynthesis, genetic engineering, and plant molecular biology.

Colleagues from the Faculty of Chemistry and the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Belgrade and the Institutes (IBISS, IMSI, IPEP, IMGTGI) participate in teaching at the master's and doctoral levels.

The original research directions at KFMBB were the influence of phytohormones and light on plant growth and development, in vitro culture, seed physiology and plant genetic engineering. More recently, colleagues at KFMBB have directed their research in new directions: physiology and molecular biology of stress in plants, physiology and conservation biology of bryophytes, plant biotechnology, photomorphogenesis, seed germination physiology, plant morphogenesis, cytology and histochemistry... Today, the scientific research activities of KFMBB are carried out in the narrow scientific field of Plant Physiology and Molecular Biology.

Over the past 10 years, members of the KFMBB have participated in 4 national basic research projects, 2 international projects, and 6 bilateral cooperation projects. Within the framework of these projects, cooperation has been achieved with colleagues from foreign scientific institutions from Slovenia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Sweden.

In the past 10 years, members of the KFMBB have published more than 120 papers in renowned international scientific journals.

Members of the KFMBB have been mentors or members of the defense committees of more than 30 doctoral theses in the field of plant physiology and molecular biology in the last decade.