Researcher profile

Ayodeji O. Oriola

Dr Ayodeji O. Oriola obtained both master's and Doctorate degrees in Pharmacognosy (natural products chemistry) at the 1st Pharmacy School in Nigeria, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, after his bachelor (Hons) program at the same institution. He became a faculty member in the Drug Research and Production Unit, Faculty of Pharmacy, Obafemi Awolowo University from in 2018. Over the last 10 years, his research focus has been natural products isolation and structure elucidation of bioactive (especially antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancer) compounds for optimization as drug candidates. He adopts chromatographic (CC, VLC, AGC and TLC), spectroscopic (NMR, UV and IR), spectrometric (HR-MS and ESI-MS) and hyphenated (LC-MS and GC-MS) methods for the isolation and characterization of natural compounds. Some of the biological screening methods used in his study include MTS cancer cell viability assay, broth dilution test for microbial susceptibility screening, and DPPH, FRAP, TAC and ferrous ion chelating assays for antioxidant screening. He engages in research collaboration locally and internationally. He has identified new natural compounds with proven biological activities. His research has also led to a Patent of a new cytotoxic molecule with promising therapeutic action against the human prostate, breast, cervical and pancreatic cancer cells. Dr Oriola is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Walter Sisulu University, South Africa, under the mentorship of Prof A.O. Oyedeji. He has published nineteen (19) articles in peer-review reputable scientific journals. So far, he has successfully co-supervised one PhD and two MSc theses. Dr Oriola is currently exploiting some African medicinal and aromatic plants, by sourcing bioactive molecules that can be optimized as drug candidates for microbial infections, cancer and some neglected tropical diseases.