A friend’s mother succumbing to HIV/Aids led a young University of KwaZulu-Natal medicinal chemistry doctoral student to a path seeking answers to help ease complications relating to cancer treatment.

Nthabeleng Hlapisi is a Lesotho national who has just been recognised among the continent’s leading young female scientists.

She was among 30 young women scientists honoured at the 2023 L'Oréal-Unesco (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) for Women in Science Young Talents Awards for the sub-Saharan Africa region held in Kasane, Botswana earlier this month.

Hlapisi and 24 other doctoral students each received €10 000 (about R205 000) while five post-doctoral researchers will pocket €15 000.

This week, she remembered a promise she made to herself following the tragedy that struck her high school friend whose mother died of HIV/Aids-related complications.

”Back then I knew there were doctors and pharmacists but I did not know about people who made drugs. I didn’t know they were called medicinal chemists or people who work in pharmaceuticals,“ Hlapisi told Independent Media.

She continued: “I vowed that day because nobody knew what this HIV/Aids is, there was no cure at that point. So I knew that I had to be one of the people who made drugs that would cure people across Africa, poor people who didn’t even know what these diseases are.

“I think that is when I made that vow that I want to cure my friend’s mom and other people whose diseases were unknown to us in Africa”.

Many years later, the graduate of the National University of Lesotho and the University of the Free State, where she was introduced to medicinal chemistry by through organic chemistry, is on the verge of another significant scientific achievement, which she hopes to complete next year and then continue with her post-doctoral studies.

”The research that landed me this award is based on using two modalities – photothermal and photodynamic therapy – where these two methods are non-invasive and are used to treat cancer,” explained Hlapisi.

She described her research as non-invasive methods that are used in order to curb or as alternatives to the normal or traditional methods such as surgery and chemotherapy.

”In these methods, for example, photothermal therapy, this is where I’ll be using nanoparticles (undetectable to the human eye) and these nanoparticles, in the presence of light, will produce localised heat and selectively kill the cancer cells,” added Hlapisi.

With photodynamic therapy, she will be using dyes, which in the presence of oxygen and light of a specific wavelength will also selectively kill the cancer cells.

”These methods, I believe, will be able to help in that they are very selective as opposed to chemotherapy or surgery because they only kill the cancerous cells and not the normal cells,” she said.

According to Hlapisi, both modalities are very biocompatible, very effective, very non-invasive and also very specific as well as having high efficacy.

”By this I mean that they only kill the cancer cells and not the normal cells. And this can be very helpful because the already existing methods to cure cancer are very invasive in that they also kill normal cells, hence in chemotherapy people lose their hair and in surgery, lose parts of their bodies,” she noted.

Hlapisi added: ”Unfortunately, these methods, in Africa, are still at the research stage but in other countries like the US, UK they have already advanced to clinical trials and are already being used in hospitals. So I believe these methods are very good.”

Recalling her journey from her birthplace, Morija, which is about an hour south of the capital, Maseru, Hlapisi said she got her first scholarship in primary school as the best-performing pupil, which helped ease the financial burden on her mother as her father died when she was still a child.

The Morija Sesotho Book Depot, which is home to Lesotho’s first bookstore, church and publishing company established by missionaries, was about three minutes from her home and she got into the habit of sneaking into and grabbing old books to read.

”I think this is where my love for reading started because as a child I had the adrenaline rush of running from security guards to take books and read about the history of Lesotho, southern Africa,” she explained.

Hlapisi later proceeded to complete her basic education at Lesotho High School, which is the mountain kingdom’s oldest and admits only the highest achievers.

Saturday Star

loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za

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