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Yemi Adesokan is a Nigerian scientist and entrepreneur, based in the United States, who has innovated by developing a technology that sequences DNA very rapidly for clinical diagnostics. His innovation can be used to screen a range of harmful pathogens found in water, livestock and food manufacturing.
Source: pathogenica.com
In the case of tuberculosis, it can take more than a week to culture samples using current technologies, whereas Adesokan’s innovation provides results within one day. In the case of HPV (Human papillomavirus) which causes cervical cancer and other types of cancers, the innovation can be used for detection with low occurrence error.
In order to commercialize his pathogen sequencing technology, Yemi Adesokan has cofounded Pathogenica Inc. in 2009 with George Church (a pioneer in genomics) from Harvard Medical School. Yemi Adesokan holds a PhD in Theoretical Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine.
Pathogenica’s first kit addressed the growing problem of healthcare associated infections. This kit detects and types the twelve most common nosocomial infections such as Acinetobacter baumanii, Enterobacter cloacae, Enterobacter aerogenes, etc. The kit also detects common drug resistance genes, among others.