UK-based scientist donates $50,000 science equipment to Yobe State University

Dr Mahmoud Bukar Maina,  the United Kingdom-based founder of an outreach program, Teaching and Research in Neuroscience for Development in Africa, (TReND) has donated $50,000 worth of science equipment to Yobe State University, Damaturu.

Mahmoud, is an indigene of Yobe State, a Nigerian neuroscientist, educator, and researcher, based at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.

Presenting the equipment to the Vice Chancellor of the university in Damaturu Mahmoud said the equipment could be used for diagnosis and basic research.

“These are cutting-edge equipment that can be used by clinicians, such as Anatomists, Physiologists, Biochemists and Microbiologists, for diagnosis and basic research,” he said.

Mahmoud said he decided to donate the items to assist the university’s newly established medical college and teaching hospital, which had both shown great promise in teaching and research.

He said that as the Director for Outreach for TReND, he had facilitated the donation of  equipment to schools in different African countries.

“As an indigene of Yobe State and given the commitment of the university’s management to promote teaching and research, I wanted to help establish a laboratory in the university which can be used for teaching and research.

“Having such a laboratory would enable us to mentor the next generation of African scientists in Nigeria and would make it easier for people like me to return home eventually to continue with research work. In a way, I am giving back to a community which has done so much to me,’’ he said.

He said he would work with the university to organise training for staff on the use of the equipment to ensure their optimum and appropriate utilisation.

The Vice Chancellor of  the university Professor Yakubu Mukhtar, thanked the donor and promised that the university will install solar panels to provide constant power supply to the laboratory where the equipment would be set up.

Items donated included a Maia Confocal Microperimetry, Leica M500 Neuro Surgical Microscope, PCR Cabinet, Luminex 100/200™ System,Two PCR machines, Refrigerated centrifuge, and two dissecting microscopes.