Shahid Jameel earned his BSc (1977) from the Aligarh Muslim University and MSc (1979) in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He then joined the Department of Biochemistry at Washington State University, Pullman, USA for PhD under the supervision of Professor BA McFadden. On completion of his PhD (1984), he joined the laboratory of Dr A Siddiqui in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (UCHSC), Denver, USA, for post-doctoral work in molecular virology. During this period he worked on molecular biology of the hepatitis B virus. In 1987, he was appointed Assistant Professor in the Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine at UCHSC and worked on regulation of interleukin-1? gene expression in humans.

Academic and Research Achievements: Shahid Jameel returned to India in 1988 to start the virology research programme at International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi. He started his research on the newly described hepatitis E virus (HEV), which causes an acute form of hepatitis endemic to India and other developing countries. His group cloned the viral genome and studied various aspects of HEV biology and pathogenesis. He heads one of the foremost groups in the world studying molecular aspects of HEV. In the mid-1990s, Jameel turned his attention to HIV and first showed the predominance of HIV-1 subtype C infection in Indians. He now studies the role of HIV accessory proteins in antigen presentation and the host response. His most recent work deals with HIV co-receptor dynamics in infected patients. He has also worked on the functional properties of other viral proteins, particularly, the hepatitis B, X and SARS virus 3a proteins. New directions of his research include the application of genomics and proteomics to disease biomarker and pathogen identification.

Other Contributions: Dr Jameel sits on various national and international committees in the area of infectious disease biology and medical biotechnology. He is the Editor (Medical Section) of the Indian Virological Journal and serves on the Editorial Boards of Journal of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Journal of Biosciences and PINSA. Dr Jameel frequently comments on infectious disease issues to the national and international press.

Awards and Honours: Dr Jameel received the BM Birla Science Prize (1995), SS Bhatnagar Prize (2000), Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship (2001) and the MR Das Memorial Lecture Award of INSA (2008).He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore and National Academy of Sciences (India), Allahabad.