Aleem Siddiqui

Aleem Siddiqui is currently a Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, at the University of California, San Diego. He received his undergraduate and graduate education from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India and Ph.D., degree from the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado Medical School, Denver, CO with Dr. Ray Erikson followed by a second postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. William S Robinson at Stanford University, CA. He was instrumental in the first molecular cloning of an infectious Hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA at Stanford University in the laboratory of Dr. Stan Cohen in 1979.  He then joined the University of Colorado Medical School as an Assistant Professor. He moved to the University of California, San Diego in 2005.  

Research Interests: Research focuses on molecular mechanisms of liver disease pathogenesis associated with HBV and HCV viral infections. More recent work is related to lipid and mitochondrial metabolisms and innate immunity during HBV/HCV infections.  Another area of focus is on the epitranscriptomic regulation of HBV RNAs. N6 methyladenosine modification of HBV transcripts differentially regulates RNA translation and reverse transcription functions. How RNA methylation affects host gene expression is an area of investigation.