Salik is a postdoctoral immunologist in Prof. Dame Sarah Gilbert's group. He undertook his professional studies of Bachelors in Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry (BVSc & AH) and Masters in Veterinary Sciences (MVSc) in microbiology and immunology at SKUAST-Kashmir. Salik then moved to South Korea in 2015 where he pursued his PhD in PRRSV-related immunology at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Jeonbuk National University.

His research interest is centered on understanding different aspects of basic and applied virology and immunology. During his Ph.D., his research was focused on developing a genetically stable and broadly cross-protective vaccine platform against Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV) and worked to further understand the immunopathogenesis and immunomodulation caused by newly emerging field strains of PRRSV in local and systemic immune systems of hosts.  After completing his Ph.D. in 2019, Salik was appointed as a postdoctoral research scientist at the Pirbright Institute where he studied the immune-related changes in poultry birds due to immunosuppression caused by infectious bursal disease (IBD) virus and, in turn, the effect of immunosuppression on the influenza virus infection and evolution. 

After completing his project successfully at the Pirbright Institute in 2022, Salik moved to the Pandemic Sciences Institute, University of Oxford to work as a postdoctoral immunologist to study the processing and presentation of T cell epitopes from nucleic acid-based vaccines, including adenoviral vectored vaccines and RNA vaccines. The work will assess alternative antigen designs for use in the vaccine technologies and assess the effect on T cell epitope processing and presentation for the development of vaccines against outbreak pathogens of pandemic importance.