Oluwashanu (Anu) Balogun (PhD '25)
by Alison Cooley
Oluwashanu (Anu) Balogun’s desire to help humans who are suffering is so great that she left her loved ones and the comfort of her home in Nigeria to pursue an education in the United States. Faculty at Pitt Medicine provided her with the skills to become a scientist, and Balogun has now begun to make discoveries to help patients with rare diseases.
Balogun’s journey to the United States began after she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in microbiology at Olabisi Onabanjo University. She moved to Tampa to attend the University of South Florida, where she earned a Master of Science degree in biotechnology. She wanted to continue her education, so she began researching PhD programs.
Life as a Pitt Medicine Student
The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine became Balogun’s first choice after an in-person visit with Pitt faculty and graduate students. “Pitt is such a vast scientific environment. They have everything you could ever think of. Graduate students were genuinely happy, and professors cared about what I wanted,” she said. “I wanted to go to Pitt after the interview.”
Balogun chose Kari Nejak-Bowen to be her thesis dissertation mentor so she could learn how to be a scientist, direct her own projects and solve her own problems. Nejak-Bowen delivered exactly what Balogun was looking for—tailored the mentoring experience to those goals. “She was absolutely brilliant,” Balogun said. “She was strategic on how she taught me to become an independent scientist.”
After several years under Nejak-Bowen, Balogun became the master of her own project. Her dissertation thesis, “Beta-Catenin Regulates Autophagy in Acute Hepatic Porphyria,” focused on patients with porphyria, a group of rare disorders that impact the production of heme, a component of hemoglobin. Her research involved signaling pathways, and it revealed that heme enzymes produce heme at optimal levels when beta-catenin is restrained. “This seminal work highlights porphyria as both a metabolic and signaling disorder, thus opening the door to mechanism-based treatments for rare liver diseases,” Balogun said. She hopes this new information will provide a more cost-effective treatment for porphyria than what’s currently offered.
In addition to making a significant discovery while earning her PhD in cellular and molecular pathology, Balogun decided to get involved with Pitt’s Biomedical Graduate Student Association and served as both president (2022-2023) and diversity and inclusion committee co-chair (2021-2022). Sam Herron (PhD ’22) and Nicole Kaminski (PhD ’22), who helped students with things like professional development, inspired her to join.
“I love the University of Pittsburgh. I don’t think I could have gone to a better institution. I loved my time there. I’m always looking for ways to contribute and give back,” she said.
Life as a Postdoctoral Fellow
Balogun is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh under the direction of Robert D. Nicholls, who has also been an exceptional mentor to her.
She is currently doing research on Prader-Willi syndrome and developing skills that will be essential for her as an independent investigator at the intersection of rare disease genetics and pathology—two disciplines she believes will help her develop personalized treatments for patients one day.
When Balogun is not in the research lab, she volunteers with the local community through the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh and enjoys book clubs, films and staying active at the gym.