Prof Oluwafemi Oguntibeju has scooped an award for excellence at the 51st gathering of the Association for Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria.
Invited to the conference as the keynote speaker, the award recognizes Oguntibeju’s significant contribution to research development and knowledge generation.
Recently awarded a full Professorship, Oguntibeju has published 113 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, 16 chapters in books, edited three books on diabetes and presented more than 42 papers at international and national conferences.
He has clinched numerous local and top awards and currently reviews manuscripts for over 30 international scientific journals.
The group leader of the Nutrition and Chronic Diseases Research Unit at the Oxidative Stress Research Centre, Oguntibeju research focuses on the medical use plants.
Oguntibeju says medicinal plants have been in use for thousands of years, and various cultures across the globe continue to rely on local medicinal plants for their primary health care.
According to the World Health Organisation, about 80% of the population in developing countries rely on medicinal plants, while its importance is growing and spreading to developed countries.
“In a modern setting, ingredients from medicinal plants are now marketed for purposes that were never dreamt of in the traditional healing systems from which they were derived, thanks to advancing technologies that allow the isolation, characterisation (and purification, in some cases), formulation, packaging and storage of ingredients from single or diverse medicinal plants for transportation to major cities where they are sold to urban dwellers,” says Oguntibeju.
“This is, to me, a fascinating juncture in the growth and development of medicinal plant research and applications. In the African context, medicinal plants and traditional medicines are directly and inherently linked: they are indivisible twins (but not twin evils).”
Oguntibeju says we cannot stop the use of medicinal plants and as researchers should look at developing appropriate approaches to manage the challenges that might be associated with medicinal plants and their applications.
