Ashiru Oladapo is a Reproductive endocrinology expert and joint pioneer of IVF research in West Africa. Ashiru joined College of Medicine of the University of Lagos as lecturer in 1976. He was at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha from 1977, where he was appointed Visiting Assistant Professor in Reproductive Endocrinology in the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UNMC Omaha based on his outstanding thesis on reproductive mechanism. He obtained a doctoral degree in 1979. In the year that followed, he returned to College of Medicine University of Lagos where he became a professor of anatomy at the age of 32.
Oladapo Ashiru explained the mechanisms controlling pituitary gonadotropins (FSH) release, showing that exogenous FSH has a positive feedback on the release of endogenous FSH. He pioneered test tube research in Black Africa, in 1984, and produced the first test tube baby in West Africa, in 1989. In 1990, he delivered his inaugural lecture: “Man know thyself and you shall have the healing powers”. In 2013, Ashiru opened an ultra-modern Maternity Suites and Genetic Laboratory which is labelled as “a true medical tourist centre” with world-class facilities.