Celebrating Dr Bawinile Hadebe: a journey from personal loss to cancer treatment innovation

IN RECOGNITION of her contributions to cancer treatment, Dr Bawinile Hadebe has received the prestigious Saul Hertz Young Investigator Award. This accolade comes in the wake of her personal journey with cancer that tragically began with the loss of her father to chemotherapy-related complications three years ago. Her subsequent quest for improved cancer treatment techniques has culminated in a major advancement in the field of theranostics.

Hadebe, a senior UKZN lecturer and Head of the Nuclear Medicine Clinical Unit at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital, received the award at the 8th Theranostic World Conference in Cape Town earlier this month in recognition of her PhD work in theranostics.

Theranostics is a personalised approach to treatment that integrates diagnostic techniques and targeted therapies to detect and treat various cancers.

The award honours her PhD work in CXCR4-targeted imaging and her contribution towards targeted radionuclide therapies for prostate and neuroendocrine tumours under the guidance of her supervisor and Head of the Nuclear Medicine Discipline, Professor Mariza Vorster.

“Cancer is a growing challenge worldwide, and we urgently need new ways to fight it. Theranostics is an exciting approach that lets us ‘see what we treat and treat what we see’. We use a special ‘search-and-destroy’ approach that involves injecting the patient with a specific radiotracer, which finds and highlights cancer cells on a scan (allowing us to see the cancer). We then inject a radiotracer with a more potent radiation, which delivers a targeted dose of radiation to kill those cancer cells while leaving the healthy parts of the body unharmed," said Hadebe. 

She said since this treatment targeted the cancer directly, unlike other treatments such as chemotherapy, which targeted the whole body, one could avoid many of the harsh side effects often seen with chemotherapy.

Hadebe, who hails from eHlokozi in iXopo on the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal, knows the harsh effects of chemotherapy all too well.

She watched with a sense of helplessness as her father endured the physical and emotional toll of the treatment, a journey that ultimately ended with his passing in 2022.

Targeted radionuclide therapy, she explains, remains a distant dream for many patients, and more effort is needed to make it more accessible.

That experience deepened her conviction that patients deserve treatments that are more precise and less debilitating.

“My father is the quiet strength behind my work. I see his face in every patient I treat, fuelling my drive to redefine what is possible in cancer care.”

For Hadebe, receiving a prestigious award recognising early- and mid-career researchers who have made significant strides in theranostics in South Africa affirms that her journey is on the right path.

The award, named after Dr Saul Hertz, the father of theranostics, celebrates its 85th anniversary this year, recognising Hertz’s pioneering work with radioactive iodine, which began in 1941 and laid the foundation for radiotheranostics.

THE POST