By: Kayode Afolabi
The 4th Inaugural Lecture of Achievers University, Owo, Ondo State, has been delivered by a Scholar, Prof. Abdulwasiu Oladele Hassan.
Prof Hassan is of the University’s Medical Laboratory Science Department of College of Basic Health Sciences.
The theme of the lecture: “FROM WET TO DRY LAB: EXPLORING THE MICROBIAL FOR A HEALTHIER NATION”.
Delivering the Inaugural Lecture, Prof. Hassan emphasized the usefulness of laboratories for a healthier nation, hence the need for the Federal Government through its National Universities Commission (NUC) to review the existing curriculum for Medical Laboratory Science, MLS in the country.
Prof Hassan also noted that “Moving forward as a country in the training of Medical Laboratory Science, I would like to offer some suggestions as recommendations emanating from this lecture as follows:
“The Federal Government through the National Universities Commission (NUC) should purposefully review the existing curriculum for MLS to include contents in dry lab towards achieving desired goals.
“We cannot be doing the same thing the same way and expect, there must be a considerable handshake between dry and wet laboratories for us to be at par with global movement in Medical Laboratory Practice.
“The lessons from SARS–CoV2 infection (COVID-19 pandemic) are sufficient to redirect our thinking as Government, Practitioners and Professionals in Health sectors. The entire globe was at the mercy of accurate diagnosis of the infection for treatment strain typing, and pathology and vaccine development. The use of the wet and dry laboratories come in handy to provide direction for treatment and vaccine development.
“As part of preparedness for the unseen future, I advocate as a recommendation that that government at all levels should establish more sophisticated laboratories in line with global best practices in Medical Laboratory and ensure adequate training and Remuneration of personnel involved in Medical Laboratory diagnostics.
“With this we can adequately take advantage of current blend in the use of wet and dry laboratories for prompt and accurate diagnosis of diseases to engender healthier society.
“Medical Laboratory is a facility that offers controlled conditions in which tests are done on clinical specimens in order to acquire information about the health of an individual for the purpose of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease or medical research.
“A dry lab is a laboratory where computational and applied mathematical analyses are done on a computer-generated model to simulate a phenomenon in the physical realm.
“A wet lab is a laboratory in which a wide range of experiments are performed, for example, characterizing of enzymes in biology, titration in chemistry, diffraction of light in physics, etc. – all of which may sometimes involve dealing with hazardous substances.
“Dry lab apparatuses for identifying and combating antimicrobial resistance: The essentials for rapid, accurate detection anq understanding of resistance factors and mechanisms are highly demanded in antimicrobial resistance.
“There are several dry lab tools for drug resistance testing, pathogenhost interaction, infection and treatment outcomes. There is necessity to facilitate and incorporate dry lab tools and applications in clinical microbiology and infectious diseases through training of personnel and by developing simple yet robust user-friendly dry lab pipelines.
Prof Hassan disclosed that his research experience to study schistosomiasis started out of two incidents.
“When I was young as a student, I used to swim at a river in Ibadan. Few months later, I started to see blood in my urine and the same happened to some of my mates, too. We refused to report the incident to our parents for more than one year due to fear of stigma.
“I eventually opened up and was taken to the hospital for urine test and treatment. It was later on when I got to Medical School in Lagos University Teaching Hospital/ College of Medicine, University of Lagos that I understood the cause of my childhood terminal bloody urination.
“Secondly, during my Masters training, I wanted to work on mycology but was assigned a Parasitologist as my supervisor. The journey continued with my Ph.D on the topic “Ecological and Molecular Studies of Urinary Schistosomiasis in communities around Erinle and Eko-Ende Dams, South Western Nigeria.”
“CONCLUDING REMARKS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Human study of disease started by way of observation of symptoms and signs. We progress gradually to study diseases through observation of organs and tissues dysfunction at macroscopic and microscopic levels using conventional methods in the Wet Laboratories ~ Medical Laboratory Science at conventional levelwith analysis of body fluids and their components.
“Now present-day science enabled us to study diseases at cellular levels and at nucleic acids level-molecular diagnostics with advances in the Dry Laboratories”.
“From wet to dry laboratory a diagnosis, every disease is a function of a nucleic acid to agent of disease or the host of disease which is unravelled by Medical Laboratory Science from wet to dry laboratory,” Prof Hassan concluded.
The historic inaugural lecture was well attended by academic scholars, friends, family members of Prof. Hassan as well as friends of the Ivory tower that has emerged as one of the leading Private Universities in the country, while the Pro-Chancellor of the University, Hon (Dr) Bode Ayorinde and the institution’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Samuel Olabanji Aje, also witnessed the display of intellectual capacity of the lecturer.
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