A professor of Pharmacognosy at the University of Lagos and Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (FPSN), Olukemi Abiodun Odukoya, has won the 12th May & Baker Professional Service Award in Pharmacy.

Odukoya is also the first Nigerian female pharmacist to be professor in Pharmacognosy and the immediate past Dean, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lagos.

A press joint statement from May & Baker and the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) noted: “Professor Odukoya’s excellence and immense contribution to the Pharmacy profession as well as her leadership in community affairs satisfy the criteria for nomination and is being awarded the 12th May & Baker Professional Service Award in Pharmacy 2016 on Tuesday November 8, 2016 at 11.30am during the opening ceremony of the 89th Annual National Conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria tagged ‘Power State 2016’ at the Hon. Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi International Conference Centre Minna, Niger State.”
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The statement added: “Odukoya has contributed immensely to Pharmacy through education in the training of Pharmacists. She is reliable and dependable. She has an accomplished career demonstrating consistent success in the Pharmaceutical specialty of Pharmacognosy, natural drug product chemistry, herbal research expert and educator and to the advancement of the frontiers of knowledge in the area of biologically active natural products. This is a subject of great importance to tropical countries such as Nigeria because of the need to develop the potential of the local biodiversity, especially the contribution that could be made in the area of products for improvement of health. Thus she has helped to solve both social and economic problems in her field.

“Professor Odukoya is also an administrator with outstanding track record in assuring student success and a recipient of various national and international awards and fellowships.

Through excellence in research, her research team emerged as the University of Lagos best researcher in Science and Medicine for the year 2007 and 2008 and Professor Odukoya was awarded a Gold Medal as the highest honour for excellence and innovation in Research by the University of Lagos in 2011. As a leader with vision, she pioneered the first herbal therapeutics laboratory in the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lagos.

“At the zenith of Professor Odukoya’s academic career at the University of Lagos, she introduced the White Coat Ceremony, Commenced the Faculty of Pharmacy Alumni Lecture Series, and established an Alumni Research Laboratory and the Bowl of Hygeia Award. Professor Odukoya is an entrepreneur as the founder of Phytocare Health Systems; Professor Odukoya is also a philanthropist as the founder of Professor Olukemi Abiodun Odukoya Cancer Solutions Initiative.”