New recruit brings blood clot expertise

Dr. Ejaife Ono Agbani, PhD, earned his bachelor of pharmacy from Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria before travelling to London England, where he earned his masters in clinical pharmacy. After practicing as a pharmacist, Agbani moved to Glasgow, Scotland to study cell biology and cellular nitro-oxidative stress signalling at the University of Strathclyde. He completed his doctorate in 2010.

But Agbani’s passion wasn’t satisfied, so he went on to do post-doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, where he investigated the role of nuclear invaginations and endo-lysosomal two-pore segment channels in calcium signalling.

He then went on to join Dr. Alastair W. Poole’s world-renowned platelet secretion lab at the University of Bristol, England. Here, Agbani carved out a distinct area of thrombosis (formation of blood clots) and haemostasis (the process by which bleeding stops) research with his discovery of novel approaches to control platelet-driven thrombosis through the modulation of procoagulant membrane dynamics. Agbani is one of the leading authors in his field. His publications (2015-2018) in high-impact journals, including the Journal of Clinical Investigation-Insight, Blood, Scientific Reports, Haematologica and Circulation, spurred a shift in thrombosis research.

Agbani joined the department of physiology and pharmacology at the Cumming School of Medicine in March 2018 as an adjunct assistant professor and became a member of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute in April 2019.

Agbani’s research interests now lie in clinical application of his knowledge of how blood clots form at the cellular level as well as in the development of a device to monitor blood clotting. He has identified new molecular drivers of the clotting process that can be used to control coagulation. He is also working with a team of cardiac surgeons and anaesthesiologists at the Foothills Medical Centre to understand how the platelet surface is impacted in patients hooked up to the heart-lung machine while undergoing surgery. The goal of this research is to find ways to predict the patients that will bleed or form excessive clots after surgery.

In his free time, Agbani loves travelling and is a visual arts and music lover.