By Foyin Ejilola, Dami Oladele amd Emmanuel Ajiboye
Professor Olatunde Farombi, a professor of Biochemistry, Toxicology, and Chemo Prevention, at the University of Ibadan has said but for the recent decline in academic culture and tradition, the University should be competing with the best universities in Africa and abroad, in terms of research outputs.
He said this while delivering the 43rd university lecture titled, ‘From Bench to Bedside and Beyond: Building Capacity in Translational Research,’ on Thursday April 8th at Trenchard Hall.
Prof. Farombi also lamented on the drastically declining rate of research and academic culture in the Department of Biochemistry and other departments in the University of Ibadan today, which, he said, has caused a major setback for the university.
“The question is that, how have we gone so low, that the University of Ibadan would even be considered alongside with some of those universities established a few years ago?” he asked.
He added that the absence of role models and mentors to guide the new generation along the academic path is one of the major contributing factors to the disappearance of academic culture.
Defining translational research as a process by which researches made in laboratories are used to diagnose diseases and the application of basic discoveries to clinical applications, which helps to bridge the gap between basic and clinical research, Prof. Faromi harped that a good translational scientist should be a boundary crosser, team player, process innovator, domain expert, rigorous researcher, skilled communicator and system thinker.
He averred there is need for basic scientists and clinical scientists to work together in research works and explained how much society would benefit if these two categories of scientists collaborate.
He explained that a good translational scientist should be a boundary-crosser, team player, process innovator, domain expert, rigorous researcher, skilled communicator and system thinker.
He added that the absence of role models and mentors to guide the new generation along the academic path is one of the major contributing factors to the disappearance of academic culture.
Despite this academic challenge, Prof. Farombi also listed some of the translational research achievements recorded by the University of Ibadan, such as discovering the clinical effects of red palm oil and the discovery of Calabar bean (Esere bean) with which glaucoma can be treated.
Prof. Farombi expressed displeasure at some unfair occurrence some of which is the employment of unqualified staff by the university, highhandedness and tampering with scheduled timetables on the part of lectures which he described as damaging agents of the university culture and tradition.
Concluding the lecture, the academic Don recommended that the government should fund research to promote translational research.
