Obaid Siddiqui

Obaid Siddiqi, National Research Professor at TIFR National Center for Biological Sciences, works on the genetics and neurobiology of Drosophila. He was born in 1932 in Uttar Pradesh and educated at Aligarh Muslim University and the University of Glasgow. He did post doctoral research at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the University of Pennsylvania, and the MRC Laboratory in Cambridge. At the invitation of Homi Bhabha, he set up the Molecular Biology Unit at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay in 1962. Thirty years later, he became the founding director of the TIFR National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, where he continues to do research.

Obaid Siddiqi’s early work was in plant embryology at Aligarh and wheat genetics at the Indian Agricultural Institute in Delhi. At Glasgow University he did research for his Ph. D. with Guido Pontecorvo on microbial genetics. He mapped the fine genetic structure of the paba gene and discovered polarized negative interference in crossing-over. Later he showed that recombinant bacteria inherit labeled DNA of biparental origin. Siddiqi and his colleagues demonstrated that recombinant molecules can arise from conserved unreplicated DNA. In 1961, Siddiqi and Garen discovered suppressor of nonsense mutations in the gene for alkaline phosphatase. This work led to the elucidation of the stop codons in the genetic code and the mechanism of chain termination during protein synthesis.

In the early nineteen seventies, Siddiqi began to study the genetic neurobiology of drosophila. He and Seymour Benzer discovered a set of temperature sensitive paralytic mutants that exhibit defects in the electrical activity of nerves and muscles. This discover led to a deeper understanding of the ionic mechanism involves in nerve conduction and synaptic transmission.

In the nineteen eighties, Siddiqi and his students Veronica Rodrigues, Kavita Arora, and R. N. Singh did pioneering work on the neurogenetics of taste and smell in Drosophila. They identified and variety of genes that control chemosensory behavior. Some of these genes control sensory transduction, others regulation the formation of the neural network in the fly’s brain. Siddiqi’s work has opened up the prospects of an integrated behavior-genetic and neurobiological approach to the study of sensory perception, learning and memory; it has led to an improved understanding of how olfactory information is encoded in the brain of the fly.

Obaid Siddiqi’s contributions have been widely recognized. He has been elected to the principal National Academies in India, and is a former president of the Indian Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Royal Society, London, the US National Academy of Sciences, Washington, and the Third World Academy, Trieste. Siddiqi has held visiting professorships at Yale University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The California Unstitute of Technology and Cambridge University. He was twice Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar at Caltech and is a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. Aligarh Muslim University, Banaras Hindu University, Jamia Hamdard, Kalyani University, IIT Bombay, Jamia Milia, and Central University of Hyrderabad have conferred upon him the honorary degree of D. Sc. He has received many prizes and awards, including the civilian honors Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.

Career Summary:

• National Research Professor,NCBS-TIFR,Bangalore(Presently)
• Founder Director,TIFR National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore
• Chancellor, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, 2005–2009
• President National Academy of Sciences(NAS), India : 1986-88
• Vice-President: 1983-85
• Council Member NAS : 1974-91
• Member, National Academy of Sciences (NAS), India, 1968- Till date
• Member, National Academy of Sciences, USA, 2003-Till Date
• Sr. Associate. Fellow, Royal Society of London,
• Director: TIFR, National Centre for Biol. Sc., Bangalore, 1993;
• Sherman Fairchild, Distinguished Scholar 81-82, 86;
• Gosney Fellow 72-73,
• Visiting Professor Cambridge Inst. of Tech., USA: 1968, 1970–71;
• Visiting Associate Yale Univ., Dept. of Biophysics in 1966;
• Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore:
• Hon. Prof. National Inst. of Advanced Studies, Bangalore:
• INSA, TWAS, Maharashtra Academy of Science.
• Pennsylvania Univ., USA: Post doctoral Fellow 61-62;
• Lallor Foundation Fellow, Cold Spring Harbor Lab., USA, 1961
• Res. Scholar, IARI, Delhi: 1957-58
• Lecturer, AMU Aligarh, 1954–57

Musician

Professor Siddiqui is deeply interested in Indian classical music and is an amateur sarod player. He studied initially with mathematician and sarodiya Dr. Kalyan Mukherjea and later with Annapurna Devi.

Awards

• Sir Syed Ahmad Khan International Award for Life Sciences 2009
• Padma Vibhushan, 2006
• B.C. Roy Award, 2004
• Sir Syed Life Time Achievement Award, AMUAA New York, 2004
• Pride of India Award, AFMI, USA, 2004
• INSA Aryabhata Medal 1992;
• Goyal Prize 1991;
• Birla Smarak Kosh National Award 1989;
• Padma Bhushan 1984;
• Bhatnagar Award 1976;
• Honorary D.Sc. from AMU Aligarh., BHU Banaras & Jamia Hamdard Delhi.

Selected publications

• GAREN A, SIDDIQI O.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1962 Jul 15
• Siddiqi OH.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1963
• Siddiqi O, Benzer S.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1976
• Siddiqi, O. (1983) Olfactory Neurogenetics of Drosophila (Oxford, New Delhi).
• Arora K, Rodrigues V, Joshi S, Shanbhag S, Siddiqi O.Nature. 1987
• Siddiqi, O. (1987) Trends Genet. 3, 137-142
• Ayyub, C., Paranjape, J., Rodrigues, V. & Siddiqi, O. (1990) J. Neurogenet. 6, 243-262
• Siddiqi O.Nature. 1999 Nov 18
• Khurana S, Abu Baker MB, Siddiqi O.J Biosci. 2009
• Chakraborty TS, Goswami SP, Siddiqi O.J Neurogenet. 2009
• Iyengar A, Chakraborty TS, Goswami SP, Wu CF, Siddiqi O.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010

References

Persondata
Name	Siddiqi, Obaid
Alternative names
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Date of birth	07-jan-1932
Place of birth	Basti,Uttar Pradesh
Date of death
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