Celebrated biologist Obaid Siddiqi, a scientist nonpareil whose pioneering work shed light on how taste and smell are detected and coded in brain, died on Friday of injuries he sustained in an accident two days ago.
Prof. Siddiqi (81), a National Research Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences here, was taking a stroll near his residence in Vidyaranyapura on Wednesday when his neighbour, a college student riding his moped, knocked him down.
Prof. Siddiqi was rushed to the Baptist Hospital, where he died of his injuries. He is survived by his wife Asiya, sons Imran and Kaleem, and daughters Yumna and Diba. Prof. Siddiqi’s family members have preferred not to file complaint against their neighbour, whose identity was not revealed by the police. Hebbal Traffic police said the scientist’s family did not want to file a complaint considering their neighbour’s career.
Prof. Siddiqi, born in 1932 in Uttar Pradesh, received PhD from the University of Glasgow for his work on microbial genetics with Guido Pontecorvo. He carried out postdoctoral research with Alan Garen at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and University of Pennsylvania. This work led to the discovery of stop codons in the genetic code and the mechanism of chain termination during protein synthesis.
He set up the Molecular Biology Unit at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai in 1962.
