Turning pain into progress: The visionary who could end cancer suffering
Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green.
What you need to know:
- The US federal government belatedly accepted to grant each American state 90,000 acres of government land, through a previously passed 1862 legislation called Land-Grant College Act.
- The land was sold to generate funds for the construction of higher learning facilities to extend practical training in integral fields to the oppressed black population.
In April 1865 after the end of the civil war, the US federal government belatedly accepted to grant each American state 90,000 acres of government land, through a previously passed 1862 legislation called Land-Grant College Act. The donated parcels of land were sold to generate funds for the construction of higher learning facilities to extend practical training in integral fields to the oppressed black population that had been excluded from accessing education.
The segregated institutions would eventually be known as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Although they were insufficiently funded, they provided academic progress for the black population.
Presently, over 107 HBCUs have an annual intake of 290,000 black students. One of the beneficiaries is a brilliant woman called Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green, who earned a PhD in physics and became a member of an exclusive class of American women to attain that accolade. Green was orphaned at an early age and was raised by her aunt, Ora Lee Smith, and army veteran and uncle Lee Smith in the mid-western city of St Louis in Missouri.
A summer programme in an HBCU institution, Xavier University of Louisiana, after high school graduation, led to a full academic scholarship to another HBCU known as Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. Green became the first person in her family to attend tertiary education. In 2003, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics with specialisation in optics and a minor in mathematics. After graduation, she inadvertently became the primary caregiver to her aunt, Ora, who was diagnosed with female reproductive cancer. In the final three months of her battle, she witnessed Ora endure harrowing nerve damage, diarrhoea, fatigue and nausea from her chemotherapy treatment.
In 2005, Green's uncle, General Lee, was also diagnosed with cancer. Green watched him lose 150 pounds together with all his scalp hair, eyebrows and eyelashes while enduring a disfiguration. She distressingly watched him succumb to a slow devastating death.
She was determined to create a painless, healthy and affordable cancer procedure that offered respite to patients and restored health with no side effects. Her specialisation in optics strengthened her conviction that there was a healthier option to chemotherapy and radiation.
Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green's scientific manual, Our Answer to Cancer.
Green states in her scientific manual, Our Answer to Cancer, that the HBCUs she attended infused foundational principles in her that inspired her and raised her self-esteem, which became a source of motivation. This led her to appreciate the ideals of justice, equality, democracy and humane treatment of all people. The HBCU institutions further enhanced the nexus of her love for communal advancement and her relentless quest for innovation.
By the time she graduated from Alabama A&M University, she was equipped with an unwavering assurance that she could develop a Laser-Activated Nano Therapy (Lant) solution to change the lives of cancer patients. At 22 with a distinctive 4.0 GPA and Physics major, Green had an epiphany while she interned at Houston's famous NASA facility and trained under individuals who developed cyber optics and faster Internet connectivity. She ascertained that if technology could be so precise, it could comparatively be reinforced to effortlessly eradicate cancer, without damaging healthy cells.
She began 10-year interdisciplinary research during her master’s and doctorate studies at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Green perfectly executed her professional expertise in nanotechnology, immunotherapy, and precision medicine. She took tiny microscopic pieces called nanoparticles and used them to design new types of nanoparticles that could only be activated by a certain wavelength of a laser.
She then shone a laser on new nanoparticles that she injected directly in a cancer tumour in laboratory mice, causing the nanoparticles to become blisteringly hot and painlessly destroy the cancer cells. The cutting-edge cancer treatment used lasers and nanotechnology to destroy cancer cells in mice in 15 days after a single 10-minute treatment with no observable side effects while preserving healthy cells.
Green designed the groundbreaking Lant treatment as a multi-cancer platform therapy and it's proficiently capable of eliminating various solid tumours, including breast, prostate, skin, colorectal, brain, and inoperable chemo-resistant cancers. In memory of her aunt, Green established the Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation, a non-profit she is harnessing to source funds and organise the first human clinical trials as she awaits patent approval on her exemplary invention.
With indisputable research data, she's on the verge of demonstrating its efficacy in various cancer models and obtaining Food and Drug Administration approval, with the support of her team of oncologists. Although the foundation became a recipient of a $1.1 million grant from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the first, second and third phases of human trials require over $100 million for completion. Thousands of cancer patients have already volunteered for Green's revolutionary laser treatment, after they were sent home to die by other medical institutions.
Additionally, Green has developed a four-in-one platform for early detection, imaging, targeting, and selective treatment for head and neck cancers. Her inventions are on the verge of drastically exterminating the current annual rate of 8.8 million deaths caused by cancer worldwide.
The writer is a novelist, a Big Brother Africa 2 Kenyan representative and founder of Jeff's Fitness Center (@jeffbigbrother).
