Dr. Siddiqi obtained his M.Sc from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in 1981, and his Ph.D from University of Oregon, under the guidance of Prof. Franklin Stahl, in 1989. Following postdoctoral work at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore,he joined Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology(CCMB) in 1992. Currently he is a group leader at CCMB.

Plant Developmental Biology

Research in the lab is mainly focused on the developmental biology of plant reproduction with an emphasis on the control of female meiosis and gametogenesis. The study of female gametophyte development is of special interest in that it affords the opportunity of addressing basic issues in plant developmental biology such as the generation of positional information leading to cell specification, and the role of cell interactions and programmed cell death, in the context of a small and well defined group of distinct and highly specialized cells that make up the female gametophyte.

The female gametophyte or embryo sac contains the egg cell and associated cells required for fertilization and development of the embryo and endosperm. In order to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying ovule and female gametophyte development in higher plants, we have taken a genetic approach starting with screens for mutants that affect female fertility using Arabidospsis as a model system. We also employ candidate gene approaches to address the function of Arabidopsis homologs of genes that are required for the control of meiosis in yeast.