The vice chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Professor AbdulGaniyu Ambali, has charged researchers in the university to conduct researches that are capable of winning the Nobel Prize, assuring them that the university will continue to provide them with world-class facilities and equipment to conduct groundbreaking researches.
Professor Ambali gave the charge on Monday while addressing participants at the opening ceremony of the second Laboratory Protocols Workshop organised by the Central Research Laboratory, University of Ilorin.
Speaking through the deputy vice chancellor (Research, Technology and Innovation), Professor Gabriel Olatunji, the vice chancellor said: “We want all researchers to come on board and use the facilities we have provided to test their brilliant ideas.”
Professor Ambali told the workshop participants that the university had made available research equipment that would make their work globally acceptable, saying that they should strive to produce research work that could compete for the prestigious Nobel Prize, as he assured them of the continuous support of the university.
He commended the Director of the Central Research Laboratory, Professor Temidayo Oladiji, for the way in which the laboratory had been managed.
In her opening address, the, Professor Oladiji, thanked the vice chancellor for approving the bimonthly workshop in order to create awareness on the available facilities in the CRL.
She said that the second edition would focus on the application of the Flow Cytometry in Biological Sciences research, noting that that most of the facilities in the CRL are not available in any other university in Nigeria.
Professor Oladiji stressed that the workshop was not to generate revenue for the university, but an avenue to expose researchers in the university to some of the latest equipment the university had procured for the purpose of research in the institution.
The Workshop Speaker, Dr M. O. Amali, in his lecture, explained the use of the Cytometry device, its applications, analysis of Flow Cytometry data and took them through a practical demonstration of the operation of the device.
The Centre’s Deputy Director, Dr Baba Alafara, was also at the workshop to conduct the programme.
Meanwhile, an Associate Professor of Medicine at the niversity of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), Dr A. O. Olokoba, and a team of scholars across departments of Medicine from Nigerian university teaching hospitals and federal medical centres were awarded the Astra Zeneca Research Grant, which was worth about N5 million to advance research in the studies of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD, otherwise called heart burn), following the submission of their winning proposal entitled ‘Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease in Nigeria: A Population-Based Study’.