Tolu Esther Alaba has been a PhD Candidate in the Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering at UMaine. She previously completed her bachelors of technology at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, in Ogbomosho Nigeria in 2011, and her masters of science at the University of Ibadan, in Ibadan, Nigeria in 2015.

She started her PhD at UMaine in the fall of 2019, just a few months before the pandemic, and during her PhD she weathered the pandemic, an advisor leaving, leaving an advisor, navigating university policy and advocating for herself, being a mentor in STEM, being a teaching assistant, raising a family, moving across the country, and learning entirely new research skills. This has been a difficult journey, but Tolu has risen to every challenge, become a competent interdisciplinary researcher and added an entirely new dimension of research to our work.

Her research has focused on antioxidants in fruits and vegetables which can be used to resolve inflammation, oxidative stress, injury, cardiometabolic and chronic diseases. She joined #TeamBroccoli last September, and in less than a year, completed a literature review which was recently published in the journal Current Developments in Nutrition, she has completed metabolomics for mouse studies for two manuscripts in preparation, and completed a nutritional analysis for a human study for a manuscript in development. The Ishaq Lab is proud of her strength in standing up for herself as an employee and a researcher, as well as of the incredible work she’s added to our team.

Alaba*, T.E., Ishaq, S.L., Li, Y., Zhang, T. “Broccoli sprouts alleviate ulcerative colitis in mice by increasing dietary and microbial metabolites: differential effects in young and adult, male and female mice. 4th CMI International Microbiome Meeting (CIMM), La Jolla, CA, March 12th – 14th, 2024.

Tolu Esther Alaba is a PhD Candidate in the GSBSE program at UMaine. Her research has focused on antioxidants in fruits and vegetables which can be used to resolve inflammation, oxidative stress, injury, cardiometabolic and chronic diseases. She joined #TeamBroccoli in the fall of 2023, and in less than a year, completed a dissertation’s-worth of research, including performing metabolomics and related data analyses on gut metabolites and broccoli sprouts in mice and humans, and drafting several manuscripts, and publishing literature review (details below) — and all this was on top of moving to California with her family, giving birth to her second child, Bethel, and extricating herself from the punitive environment of her former lab. The Ishaq Lab is proud of her strength in standing up for herself as an employee and a researcher, as well as of the incredible work she’s added to our team.

Alaba*, T.E., Ishaq, S.L., Li, Y., Zhang, T. “Broccoli sprouts alleviate ulcerative colitis in mice by increasing dietary and microbial metabolites: differential effects in young and adult, male and female mice. 4th CMI International Microbiome Meeting (CIMM), La Jolla, CA, March 12th – 14th, 2024.