Black Artist and Scientist Series
Spotlight Scientist: Omotayo Gbadamosi

Written by Dunia Roba

Hello, my name is Dunia Roba, and I am an undergraduate research assistant at the INCUBATOR art lab. As a biochemistry student, I’ve taken countless lab courses throughout my degree and biochemistry PhD student Omotayo Gbadamosi has been my GA for several of these classes. In getting to know her, I found her kind, knowledgeable, and an overall great teacher. Omotayo does her research at the University of Windsor in Dr. Drew Marquardt’s LABR group studying lipids and membranes. I sat with her this past January to learn about her passions, current projects, and future goals.

Q: Please introduce yourself and provide a brief biography.

My name is Omotayo Gbadamosi, and I was born and raised in Windsor, Ontario to Nigerian parents. Growing up, I was always interested in science. I remember watching the How the Universe Works, a two-hour show on space and science, every day after school. Whenever I had free time, I would binge YouTube videos on mathematics, and I think I watched all the videos from the Numberphile YouTube account. I’d also watch Nile Red who built a lab in his garage and did chemistry experiments. Science has been an interest of mine ever since I was a kid.

Q: What did you study in your undergraduate degree and how did it lead to your research today?

I was in integrative biology during my undergrad. I took a lot of cell and cancer classes, which is interesting because the research I'm doing now is very different. When I first joined my lab, it was winter 2020. I was only there for two months of lab work before it shut down due to COVID. At the time, I had a mentor who showed me the main lab techniques and gave me an introduction to the lipid and neutron scattering work we do. I never learned those things in my undergrad because they weren’t covered in biology courses. Luckily, it wasn't too large of a learning curve, and I had support from my supervisor and mentor.

My first independent research project was in my fourth year for an undergraduate thesis. I was able to do it in my own way, because they just gave me a project idea and I built it from the ground up. I chose the techniques, the experiments, the tests, and the background research I wanted to do. Having that independence was nice. Research was not originally on my radar as a career choice. When I started my undergrad, I was only thinking about medical school. But when I did my undergrad thesis, I found that research might be a better fit for me– and fun.

Q: Could you walk us through your current research project?

My main research involves developing and optimizing lipid-based delivery systems, specifically for diagnosing diseases that are hard to detect with imaging. The difficulty with neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer’s for example, is that PET scans of these illnesses look like any other head trauma. It’s hard to know if the patient has Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or a concussion– leading to difficulties in diagnosing such diseases early on.

Our goal is to make a lipid delivery system that targets the hallmark characteristics of Alzheimer’s, such as amyloid beta plaques or neurofibrillary tangles. We do this by binding an antibody to the system, and then adding a vitamin E based imaging dye or agent. When we then take a scan and do the measurements, our dye will bind to those unique hallmark characteristics, and we'll be able to diagnose Alzheimer’s early.

Catching these diseases quickly is extremely important for treatment and improving the quality of life for the patient and caregivers. Usually, early diagnostic scans aren’t possible, and providers must wait until the disease has progressed further. The patient must then start treatment later, lowering their chance at recovery. If we can catch these diseases and get the patients on the correct treatment plan early, it will increase the likelihood of recovery and an improved life.

However, the difficulty with using these antibodies is that the blood-brain barrier, a cellular layer with small pores, is extremely restrictive and allows very, very few molecules to enter the brain. This is why research progress into these different agents and treatments is slow. We’re trying to overcome this by creating unique elliptic compositions, which is where our lipid expertise comes in handy. Based off my knowledge of lipid shape and hydrophobicity, I can compose a mixture of lipids to form a lipid delivery system that can bypass the barrier and reach the neural tissue. This allows our antibodies to target the hallmarks and improve diagnostic scans.

Finding the starting point for these projects is difficult, though. There are hundreds of lipids that I could use in a thousand different ways, so it takes time to narrow down and determine what type, size, and composition of lipids are ideal. Do you want it to be spherical, like a liposome with an aqueous core and a lipid bilayer? Or do you want it to be a micelle with no aqueous core and one lipid layer? There’s a lot of creativity and playing around to find the right compositions.

Q: With all the building and developing that you do, how do you test your lipid delivery systems?

We do neutron scattering, which we typically need to travel to do. The main place we go to is the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. There's another facility that we've also been going to recently called Rutherford Appleton Laboratories in the UK. We use neutron scattering to extract details about our systems such as their size, shape, and bending rigidity (how “soft” our lipid delivery system is). Knowing rigidity is helpful because if our lipids want to bypass the brain barrier, they can squeeze through easier if they are soft and malleable. These are parameters we can realistically only test using neutron scattering. While X-rays are a popular technique, they are really damaging– once you hit your sample with X-rays once, you can never use it again. With neutrons, however, we can use that same sample multiple times. So, we’re able to take a measurement at Tennessee or in the UK and then come back to the University of Windsor and run further tests on it. We can also highlight some parts of our system and mask others to analyze different properties. Neutron scattering is our number one technique and other methods, like X-rays and NMR, are used complementary to that.

Q: As a PHD student, how do you stay motivated and inspired to continue your work?

I think if you ask any grad student, they’d probably say something similar: graduate school is a lot of failures and some successes. There are two main things I do to overcome those failures.

First, I take breaks. If I’m working on one project and I reach a dead end, I start doing something else instead of pushing through. I find that, oftentimes, when I’m working on just one project, I can become narrow sighted and not see the other solutions to my problems. You also have the support of your lab group, and I will often talk to my other lab mates and supervisor when I face issues to gain a new perspective.

The second thing I do, which is a bit odd, is read other papers for inspiration. By reading, I can learn new techniques and experiments from different fields, and I’ll think about how these methods can apply to what we're doing. It might be a random physics paper where we could use the same technique they did, or I can use this method to analyze my data. It’s helpful because what we do is biochemistry and biophysics. Maybe I’ll read a paper purely on cell culture and I’ll think of how to apply their methods to the lipids I’m making. Reading gives me new ideas to try out in the lab, which builds excitement for me. I have fun doing new experiments, and it helps me push through my work.

Q: Is what you do, with the lipid systems, a relatively novel field? Or is there a precedent and other research that you’re building off?

Most of the studies in this field, I think, are very fundamental. The research tends to ask questions like, “How does this lipid system form domains? How does this lipid system change its rigidity? How do these lipids interact with other lipids?” It's all very fundamental work and not much has been done with application. Only now are you seeing more studies about, let's say, the application of lipid nanoparticles. They’re making these different lipid compositions to deliver agents in aqueous environments, for example mRNA with the COVID vaccine. So, there is a bit of precedence, but it's still a new and quickly growing field.

Even for my project, there are these lipid compositions that were used for the COVID vaccine and for other cancer treatments with a standardized golden lipid composition. However, these are usually too large for our application. Regardless, we still have something to start off and play around with. I remember doing that in my first year where I investigated how to make these liposomes smaller, what their stability was when they were smaller, and how to do quality control. So, we had a place to start at, but after that, you just have to take a risk. My work is a lot of trying something out and then evaluating it using the scientific method.

Q: Could you share any advice for aspiring researchers or scientists looking to make a difference in their field?

My advice would be to find a research topic that you genuinely care about. While you could join something popular like cancer research, if you're not passionate about it, are you going to enjoy what you’re doing? Will you produce work that you can be proud of and want to share with others? Find something that you can care about, so you’ll be excited to present your data at a conference or thesis presentation and see the fruits of your labor. Because if you don't enjoy it, then everyday will be miserable for you. The lab hours are roughly eight hours, right? It’ll be like doing a nine to five hating what you’re doing. So, find what you're passionate about, care about it, and then you'll enjoy the process.

Q: Do you have any personal experiences, for example projects, conferences, conversation, or courses, that have changed your outlook on science?

I remember my very first international conference in Chicago during the first year of my master's. I had a poster at the time, and I remember listening to other people's oral presentations and looking at their posters. I was just in awe of what everyone was researching. People in our field were accomplishing things that I had no idea you could even do with lipids. I'd stare at their poster and listen in awe. It’s just amazing to see the different directions and applications science can take.

When high school students come to the University of Windsor, I always tell them that you might think that research is just you in a lab, mixing chemicals or growing cells or something else. But what you're doing can and will impact society at a larger scale. Hopefully what I'm doing will be improved upon and become something greater in the future, even after my time. Seeing what others are doing is motivation for me, which is why I like going to conferences.

Q: Do you have any plans for after graduation?

I would ideally want to work in cosmetic pharmaceuticals. I’m going to do an internship in California to learn more about the industry. I want to make skincare products, serums, face masks, sunscreen and maybe even makeup. It would be cool to apply lipids to that, because even though my project is looking at diagnostic techniques, you can use them for nearly anything– which is what I love about lipids. I also want to apply my neutron scattering experience and start to quality check new products for companies in that way. So, that is what I hope to do after I graduate.

Thank you to Omotayo for having this conversation with me and I wish her the best of luck for her internship! To learn more about her, her work, and contacts, check the links out below.

LinkedIn: Omotayo Gbadamosi
Email: gbadamo1@uwindsor.ca