Ayodeji Olayemi

Profile

What is the diversity, distribution, and what are the taxonomic statuses of various rodent populations that lie across the various ecological zones that span Nigeria? Which are carriers of zoonotic disease? How can this knowledge be used to effectively manage the effects that rodents have on humans? These questions are what Dr Olayemi’s current research seek to answer.

In 2005 and 2008 Dr Olayemi was awarded travel grants by the National Focal Point to the Global Taxonomy Initiative (NFP-GTI) in Belgium to learn molecular techniques that would enable accurate identification of his rodent specimens. In 2010 Dr Olayemi won a major grant with the European Foundation Initiative for African Research into Neglected Tropical Diseases (EFINTD) to carry out the research project “Ecology of transmission of the deadly Lassa virus from rodents to humans across various flashpoints within Nigeria”.

Currently, under an extended, senior EFINTD fellowship (2015-2018) Dr Olayemi studies the molecular epidemiology of primary (rodent-to-human) Lassa fever transmission within Nigeria.

Career

Education