What initially sparked your interest in microbiology, particular in the field of RNA regulation?

Initially, I was interested in microbiology before I got into RNA work. When I was still in high school, my parents had me and my siblings move from the city to a rural area with almost no close access to medical facilities. But we had this book containing 100s of pages with the title “Where there is no doctor”. Whenever we would fall ill, we would look there for remedies to cure ourselves. But I also read it just out of interest. This is how I got to know the idea of microbial diseases. Later on, in senior year in high school, I actually got to see bacteria and I was fascinated by how they looked like. That’s why I decided to do my Bachelor’s in microbiology and then continued my Master’s in Germany afterwards.

I was especially interested in how microbial organisms influence us humans and how we can treat infections with different drugs. The time I started at the Leibniz-HKI was more or less the time where there was this spark of interest in the field of RNA. … And luckily my boss then, Professor Brakhage, had a project which also involved RNA regulation. I then decided to work on this and it propelled me into the fascinating world of RNA biology.

Was there a person who had an influence on your career path?

The path I chose came more from what I enjoy, it was something intrinsic. The only person I actually really look up to is my dad. But he was not into biology, as he worked as an engineer. When I was young, I always wanted to be like him. My dad was my role model. But at some point, though, I realized I like biology more than physics. It is just this natural inclination to biology for me.

Have there been any memorable moments for you during your time as a doctoral researcher? Maybe something you were particularly proud of?

Yes, I’ve done some things that I am proud of. The major one would be when we got to publish my first research paper*, because this was something I’ve been working on for years, when I started my Master’s in Professor Brakhage’s lab, and then I moved into Dr. Blango’s lab and worked on the same project as well. Well, it took a different turn in the beginning. We soon experienced some setbacks, and we had to rethink our hypothesis and strategized accordingly. It took quite a lot of years to come to the final results, and when it was published last year, I was really, really happy about this.

*Editor’s note: The title of this paper is “Disruption of the Aspergillus fumigatus RNA interference machinery alters the conidial transcriptome”. It was published in RNA on 5^th April 2023. The paper is available following https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10275271/.

You worked as a QC Microbiologist at a Nigerian food company. What made you go to the industry first before starting your Master’s?

Well, even before the food industry, I also worked as a chemistry teacher. I loved teaching. This was actually more important to me than the short time I spent in the food company. The latter was just a filler… I finished teaching, and at that point I was applying for positions here in Europe. So, I just didn’t want to do nothing (laughs).

Do you have a special memory from the time you were teaching?

It is just the satisfaction I got from seeing that some students truly understood what I was teaching. Knowing that this transfer of knowledge has the potential to positively influence their future is incredibly rewarding. I always tried to relate everything I was teaching to what the students can see. When I wanted to describe the chemical structure of water, I designated two hydrogen molecules to two students and one oxygen molecule to another one and just put them together. The students liked this and it was also fun for me as well.

Back to your research. Beyond your current focus, are there any other scientific areas that you’re particularly intrigued with?

In the future, I want to go a bit closer to humans again. In the last years, I worked a lot on microorganisms, but I never lost my interest in human biology. I occasionally read some articles and papers on topics like the mechanics of the body, how the joints work and the muscles. At some point I would like to tie it all together.

Let’s delve more into that. What are some of your dreams? Do you plan to go back to Nigeria someday?

At least for now, I would still want to stay in Europe, because there are much more opportunities here for the level of education I have now. I mean, unfortunately, back home there aren’t a lot of them, and if you want to do something of real significance, there are even less. But in the end, I would want to give something back to my country. I would like to impact the youth there, through teaching and knowledge, and with this, I hope to advance science in Nigeria as well.

Is there any advice you would like to give to aspiring microbiology researchers who are interested in RNA regulation or pathogenic fungi?

I would say it’s a really hot topic now, especially since the Covid vaccine. It is the perfect time to go into this field, with fungi, bacteria, microorganisms – it doesn’t matter, because we have not really exploited these RNA pathways to make therapeutics against microbial infections. It would be great if you could design small RNA molecules that could target the bacteria or fungi causing infection. This is not something we’ve done so far. It’s a really cool time.