Maayla Siddiqi

Maayla Siddiqi is currently working as Lab Manager for the Undergraduate Teaching Lab (Biology) at Ashoka University. She is involved in the day-to-day management and smooth functioning of the teaching laboratories, supporting undergraduate laboratory courses in Cell Biology and Genetics, Microbiology, and Molecular Biology. Her responsibilities include laboratory setup and maintenance, inventory and procurement management, equipment upkeep, preparation of standard operating procedures, and coordination with vendors to ensure uninterrupted laboratory operations. She also assists in training and mentoring undergraduate students in laboratory practices and experimental techniques.

Maayla holds a B.Sc. degree from Jamia Millia Islamia and an M.Sc. in Biotechnology from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. During her master’s thesis, she worked in the field of Molecular Virology, focusing on the expression, purification, and characterisation of viral proteins.

Prior to joining Ashoka University, she gained research experience at Tata Memorial Hospital, where she worked on liquid biopsy approaches for the early diagnosis of cancer. Her technical expertise includes molecular biology and microbiology techniques such as plasmid isolation, protein induction and purification workflows, SDS-PAGE, agarose gel electrophoresis, spectrophotometry, microbial culture handling, and model organism work involving Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila melanogaster.