Throughout her career, Iruka Okeke has been drawn to studying the hard problems that most others have abandoned - like enteroaggregative Escherichia coli (E. coli), one of the most understudied causes of child illness in the world.

These bacteria are prevalent across Africa, and infected children can experience repeated or protracted bouts of diarrhea, washing out many of the nutrients they need to grow and develop. However, little is known about these pathogens, including which ones are harmful (many enteroaggregative E. coli resemble harmless E. coli) and what it is about them that cause disease.

Iruka is using whole genome sequencing data to identify the specific characteristics that the harmful E. coli have that make children sick and reveal which lineages should be prioritized for vaccine development.

Several years ago, Iruka was among the first scientists to push for bacterial whole genome sequencing to be conducted routinely in Africa. And for most of that time, she was often the only female microbiologist in the room. Now, she is training dozens of people, including many women, with the bioinformatic and genomic science skills needed to analyze the sequencing data.

"We need an army of people that can use the sequences and do something about endemic disease," said Iruka, whose desire to help build the next generation of African scientists also motivated her return to Nigeria in 2014 after 15 years abroad.

Later, when she looks back on her career accomplishments, she hopes her work as a mentor will have been just as impactful as the results she got in the lab.

"When I first got back people would say, 'are you planning to change science in Nigeria?' That would be nice, but what I really want to do is mentor young scientists," she said. "I'm one person but if I can train 10 people, and they train another 10 people, then you really get an exponential expansion in terms of what science can and will do."