Dr. Adekile graduated from the University of Ibadan in 1973. He began his academic career at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and later pursued studies at Howard University, Washington, DC, USA, and Kuwait University. His research focus has been on sickle cell disease (SCD) for more than 40 years. He was the recipient of the Fogarty International Fellowship in molecular genetics at the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Ga, USA between 1990 and 1993. He was among the first to use molecular techniques to study SCD among Nigerian and Kuwaiti patients, which formed the basis of his PhD thesis at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands, which he obtained in 1996. He is regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on SCD. In recognition of this, he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Hemoglobin, the International Journal of Hemoglobin Research, in 2023. He has received numerous research grants, including those from USAID, NIH, and the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science. He has published 170 articles in peer-reviewed international journals. He was a consultant to the WHO on the management of SCD in sub-Saharan Africa. In the field of advocacy, Dr. Adekile was the founding chairman of the Sickle Cell Support Society of Nigeria, which recently hosted the 5th Congress of the Global Sickle Cell Disease Network in Abuja. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Global Action Network for Sickle Cell and Other Inherited Blood Disorders. He has mentored many junior colleagues and supervised many fellowship and PhD theses. He is currently collaborating with colleagues at Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA, on genome-wide sequencing of DNA samples from SCD patients from Nigeria, Kuwait, Oman, and Iraq to identify polymorphisms associated with different phenotypes and identify regional/ethnic differences in the natural history of the disease.