A Visit from an Old Friend - Prof. John Igoli, Vice Chancellor of Pen Resource University, Nigeria

23 March 2023

One very good friend of BeeVital over the years has been Professor John Igoli. We first got to know John when he was working with our long-time colleague Dr Dave Watson at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. John had come from Nigeria to do post-doctoral research there. He found out about propolis soon after he joined and quickly developed a passion for propolis research.

After leaving Strathclyde he went on to become Professor of chemistry in Makurdi University in Nigeria and just a few months ago John was appointed as the very first Vice Chancellor of a brand-new university in Nigeria – Pen Resource University.

In addition to his specific research work on propolis, John’s background is research in Organic Chemistry, Pharmacology and Phytochemistry. He is also interested in drug discovery and in the bioassay of isolated or synthesised compounds. He is keenly involved in spectroscopic (nmr, mass spec) identification of compounds and the evaluation of medicinal plants used in traditional medicine. To date, John has been involved in over 170 research papers. A recent research paper published in January 2023 included as authors, Dr. Dave Watson, James Fearnley, Godwin Ebiloma (another colleague with whom we have links) & Professor John Igoli and was titled “The Activity of Red Nigerian Propolis and Some of Its Components against Trypanosoma brucei and Trypanosoma congolense.” In this research, red Nigerian propolis from Rivers State, Nigeria was tested against T. brucei and T. congolense and found to be highly active. This is a significant finding as the protozoa Trypanosoma brucei and T. congolense cause disease in humans and/or animals and the existing drugs for treating these diseases are old and resistance is an increasingly severe problem.

John took time out of his busy schedule recently to visit us, and spend time with our research team, at Nature’s Laboratory lab, working with our director of quality and research, Dr. Shankar Katekhaye and Dr. Bhagyashree Kamble, Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Research Associate with the University of Bradford. It was clear to us how passionate John is about teaching, research and collaboration. As part of his collaboration with Nature’s Laboratory, John will be working with us on our Global Propolis Survey, and is bringing samples of propolis for us to analyse from a wide area in Nigeria.

We rounded off a very full visit from John with a meal at a local restaurant where we found out more about our friend and his life which involves not only scientific research, but poetry and creative writing! We are looking forward to John joining us as a Director of our Apiceutical Research Centre, and continuing our exciting collaboration on propolis research.