PhD Candidates
Adaeze Okonkwo
Adaeze Okonkwo is a PhD candidate at the University of Ibadan's Department of Medical Microbiology, where she develops multiplex point-of-care diagnostics for tropical co-infections. Her dissertation targets the simultaneous detection of Plasmodium falciparum and Salmonella typhi using a single lateral flow platform — a common dual-burden scenario across West Africa that current single-pathogen tests miss. Working under Prof. Oluwaseun Adeyemo, she has engineered conjugated antibody pairs that achieve 94% sensitivity in field conditions without cold-chain storage requirements. Her work is funded by the African Academy of Sciences and has attracted interest from diagnostics companies seeking CE-IVD pathways for Sub-Saharan markets. Adaeze's lab bench expertise spans antigen-conjugation chemistry, microfluidic channel design, and quantitative PCR validation of strip readouts. She maintains active collaborations with Médecins Sans Frontières field teams in Nigeria and Ghana, giving her unusually direct feedback loops between prototype performance and clinical utility in low-resource settings. Her transition toward commercialisation is visible in her recent IP disclosure filings and attendance at the Diagnostics for All summit in Nairobi.
Details
- Advisor
- Prof. Oluwaseun Adeyemo
- Field
- Tropical Disease Diagnostics
- Institution
- University of Ibadan
- Skills
- ELISA designlateral flow assay fabricationHPLCR statistical analysis
- Thesis
- Point-of-Care Lateral Flow Assays for Simultaneous Detection of Malaria and Typhoid in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Transition Signals
- presenting at AfricaHealth Expo 2026LinkedIn open to industry rolescollaborating with MSF on field trial protocols