Obaid Siddiqi (January 7th, 1932 – July 26th, 2013) recently passed away after battling injuries from a road accident.
Obaid Siddiqi
At 81 and still running a vibrant lab at the National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS) that he had established 20 years ago and being involved in several science initiatives, on evening of July 21st he was hit by a two-wheeler when taking a stroll near his house.
Iconic Siddiqi was one of the most transformative biologists to come from South Asia and is widely regarded as the father of modern biology in India. His own research encompassed several model systems, levels of analysis, and fields in biology.
He started out as an agricultural scientist, working on plant embryology at Aligarh and wheat geneticis at Delhi. A crop failure in Delhi due to a hailstorm and desire to do something more exciting took Obaid to Glasgow. For his Ph.D. research under the guidance of Guido Pontecarvo at Glasgow, when exploring linear relationship between different allelic p-aminobenzoic-acid-requiring mutants of the fungus Aspergillus nidulans, he observed marked concentration of the mutational sites in a small part of the gene (Siddiqi, 1963).
Later in collaboration with Alexandra Putrament, who was escaping the Michurin/Lysenko biology of Poland, by taking a 10-month stint at Pontecarvo lab, he further used intragenic recombination to suggest polarized negative interference (Siddiqi & Putrament, 1963). These two studies were one of the first reports of fine mapping of a gene or cistron, as was the preferred terminology. Already acclaimed in molecular biology circles for his Ph.D. work, Siddiqi moved to Garen’s lab at CSHL and later UPenn, where he again struck gold when exploring an external suppressor for a class of mutations in alkaline phosphatase gene of E. coli (Garen & Siddiqi, 1962). He found nonsense mutations (unable to specify any amino acid) that were instrumental in the idea of codons and our understanding of gene translation. At the height of fame in molecular biology, instead of staying in US, in 1962, Siddiqi sprang to the opportunity offered by Homi Bhabha of creating the Molecular Biology Unit (now called Department of Biological Sciences) at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) at Bombay. He personally recruited comrades for the cause of Indian Science by bringing back colleagues of Indian origin from all over the US and heralding India’s entry into modern biology.
At Bombay, with his student PV Sarathy (Sarathy & Siddiqi, 1973a; 1973b), he extended his previous finding, where he had shown that recombinant bacteria inherit DNA of bi-parental origin to also demonstrating conditions where conserved un-replicated DNA can be used for conjugation. This work amongst others established many of the basics of bacterial conjugation and founding the principles of lateral gene transfer, something that has great relevance for our understanding of drug resistance and evolutionary biology.
Science to him was about finding new frontiers, so at height of running a successful lab he sought out yet another challenge. Now we all take neurogenetics now for granted but in the early 70s, Sydney Brenner employing C. elegans and Seymor Benzer exploring D. melanogaster were overcoming stiff resistance in convincing the world that a single gene mutation approach could also be applied to the understanding of the nervous system. Never hesitant to enter rough waters, Obaid teamed up with his good friend Seymor Benzer, with whom he shared love of progressive social activism apart from science (Khurana 2013), in describing the different neurophysiological phenotypes of three temperature sensitive paralytic mutants comatose, para and sh (Siddiqi & Benzer, 1976). This eventually opened the possibility of the use of temperature sensitive block of synaptic recycling that is now routinely used to have spatiotemporal control of neural activity in fruit fly for mapping circuitry.
He then returned to Bombay and alongside new crop of students, such as Kavita Arora and Veronica Rodrigues embarking on describing first chemosensory single gene mutants and thus opening the field of chemosensory neurogenetics (Arora, Rodrigues, Joshi, Shanbhag, & Siddiqi, 1987; Rodrigues & Siddiqi, 1981; Siddiqi & Rodrigues, 1980). In the second half of his chemosensory studies from late 90s again not satisfied continuing on safe trajectory of finding yet more genes and mapping more circuits alone, Obaid embraced complexity to the fullest by exploring the nuances of behavior. He explored details of sensory response (Khurana & Siddiqi, 2013), sensory plasticity (Iyengar, Chakraborty, Goswami, Wu, & Siddiqi, 2010; Khurana, Abu Baker, & Siddiqi, 2009) and trying to overcome the limitations of simple behavioral measures through detailed tracking of animals (Hussaini, Krishnan, Abhishek , & Siddiqi , 2003).
Obaid Siddiqi with Francis Crick and Alan Garen at the Symposium on Nucleic Acids, Hyderabad, India. January, 1964
While the list of Siddiqi’s scientific achievements itself is more than one can aspire for in a career but his bigger contribution was training large number of scientists from India on a one to one basis, building several institutions, many in advisory manner but others such as the biology unit at TIFR and NCBS as the founding director, managing to the last detail the hiring, architecture and administrative structure of these institutions, establishing accountability in the scientific system of a country otherwise known for its hierarchy and autocratic controls.
His contribution to science outreach was significant and in roles such as the president of Indian Academy of Sciences he helped put India on the map of modern biological research (Khurana 2013). Those fortunate enough, like me, to work under his guidance knew of his several other interests, such as Indian classical music, history, visual arts and several sports. His accidental death has left a wide gap in Indian science, as at the age of 81 there had seemed no end in sight for Siddiqi’s scientific pursuits.
Siddiqi was an elected member of the Royal Society, London, US National Academy of Sciences, The Third World Academy of Sciences, The Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences (India) amongst several others academies and had received several top civilian honors of India, many honorary degrees, many visiting professor positions.
For me the 3 years that I spent in his lab were crucial for the intellectual foundations of my pursuits in neuroscience and I will always remember him for that.
Science and India have lost a true hero.
Sukant Khurana, Ph.D.
(Author is a New York based neuroscientist and visual artist, currently working at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He had the privilege to work on olfaction, learning and memory under the guidance of Prof Obaid Siddiqi from 2000 to 2003.)
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Sukant Khurana, A Renaissance Man And Father Of Modern Indian Biology. (2013). A Personal Tribute To Prof. Obaid Siddiqi, A Renaissance Man And Father Of Modern Indian Biology. countercurrents.org. Retrieved July 30, 2013, from http://www.countercurrents.org/khurana300713.htm
Arora, K., Rodrigues, V., Joshi, S., Shanbhag, S., & Siddiqi, O. (1987). A gene affecting the specificity of the chemosensory neurons of Drosophila. Nature, 330(6143), 62–63.
Garen, A., & Siddiqi, O. (1962). Suppression of mutations in the alkaline phosphatase structural cistron of E. coli. PNAS, 48:1121-7.
Iyengar, A., Chakraborty, T. S., Goswami, S. P., Wu, C.-F., & Siddiqi, O. (2010). Post-eclosion odor experience modifies olfactory receptor neuron coding in Drosophila. PNAS, 107(21), 9855–9860.
Khurana, S., & Siddiqi, O. (2013). Olfactory responses of Drosophila larvae. Chemical senses, 38(4), 315–323. doi:10.1093/chemse/bjs144
Khurana, S., Abu Baker, M. B., & Siddiqi, O. (2009). Odour avoidance learning in the larva of Drosophila melanogaster. Journal of biosciences, 34(4), 621–631.
Rodrigues, V., & Siddiqi, O. (1981). A gustatory mutant of Drosophila defective in pyranose receptors. Molecular & general genetics, 181(3), 406–408.
Sarathy, P. V., & Siddiqi, O. (1973a). Effect of mating on cell division in Escherichia coli Hfr. Molecular & general genetics, 125(2), 133–137.
Sarathy, P. V., & Siddiqi, O. (1973b). The effect of chromosome transfer on gene expression in Escherichia coli Hfr. Molecular & general genetics, 125(2), 125–132.
Hussaini A., Krishnan P., Abhishek V., & Siddiqi O. (2003). A rapid method for measuring olfactory responses of Drosophila larva. Current Science.
Siddiqi, O. H. (1963). The fine genetic structure of the pabal region of Aspergillus nidulans. Genetical Research, 3(01), 69–89.
Siddiqi, O. H., & Putrament, A. (1963). Polarized negative interference in the paba 1 region of Aspergillus nidulans. Genetical Research, 4(01), 12–20.
Siddiqi, O., & Benzer, S. (1976). Neurophysiological defects in temperature-sensitive paralytic mutants of Drosophila melanogaster. PNAS, 73(9), 3253–3257.
Siddiqi, O., & Rodrigues, V. (1980). Genetic analysis of a complex chemoreceptor. Basic life sciences, 16, 347–359.
