News Chemistry

Protein whisperer Oluwatoyin Asojo fights neglected diseases

She’s also creating opportunities for scientists from historically underrepresented groups

A photograph of Oluwatoyin Asojo who's faintly smiling while standing in an empty white hallway by large panels of windows. She is wearing a dress with black, white, brown and red geometric patterns, black coat, black and brown knee-high boots, green scarf with patterns, and brown and orange necklace.

Oluwatoyin Asojo has dedicated her career to work on diseases that get little funding and attention, including hookworm.

Rob Strong

By Carmen Drahl

When Oluwatoyin Asojo was about 9 years old, she started volunteering regularly at an orphanage near where she lived in Nigeria. She remembers seeing kids infected with parasitic worms, or with faces disfigured from leprosy.

“It was eye-opening,” Asojo says. She was raised on campus at one of Africa’s finest universities and Nigeria’s oldest — the University of Ibadan.