One Woman’s Use of Nanoparticles May Be the Key to Curing Cancer.
Throughout the course of history, the human race has been subjected to various plagues, viruses, chronic illnesses, and physical deficiencies. These illnesses often resulted mass graves, city-wide quarantines, and health scares that sent the public into mass hysteria. Luckily for us, modern medicine has cured many of these ailments. No longer do we have to worry about contracting smallpox, or coming down with a bad case of the Bulimic plague. We’re in an age where modern medicine is more available than ever.
However, there is one disease that has stood the test of time. One disease that even with our modern understand of medicine and epidemiology, we have been unable to overcome. Cancer has been around for more than a millennium, having stretched back to the times before the common era with the earliest documentation being cases illustrated on papyrus by ancient Egypt civilization. One of the leading causes of death worldwide, it has killed millions upon millions of people over the years, and still continues to strike fear on an international scale. The fear an individual feels when they find a lump under their skin or a soreness that refuses to go way is often sparkled by that one question: “What if it’s cancer?” Cancer treatment is not only extremely expensive, it can have long-term effects on your health and wellbeing. And even then, there’s no guarantee that it won’t come back. Over the years, modern medicine has fought hard to combat this deadly disease, but a cure has remained elusive to us even still.
One Black Woman May Have the Answer
While we’re still a long way from finding a cure, a method of treating cancer without the adverse side effects that have become synonymous with the disease is currently being rigorously tested and experimented with. Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green offered a revolutionary alternative to fight cancer through the use of nanoparticles. Having graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and being one of the few black female alumni to leave with a PhD in physics, Green soon rose to the forefront of cancer research. She was given the title “Top 30 Under 40 in Health Care” by Business Insider and received the BET Her Breast Cancer Awareness Award in 2018 for her dedication in treating the disease that kills off 1 out of 39 women a year.
Her drive to find a cure for the disease that has ended the lives of so many people wasn’t due to a lifelong dream to be a physics. As a child, she probably would have never dream this was what her life’s work would culminate to. Her determination to find a cure comes from her personal experience with the “incurable” disease. During her twenties, Green’s lost her legal guardians—her aunt and uncle—who tragically died of cancer. Green somberly recounted the loss of her aunt, who was the first to go.
“[My aunt] said that she would rather die than experience the side effects of chemotherapy or radiation. I was her primary caregiver the last three months of her life, and I watched her go from this powerful matriarch in our family to being someone who couldn’t walk, speak, or stand on her own.”
Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green
While a tragic event like this would no doubt break many people down, Green only allowed the tragedy to motivate her. She wanted to find a solution to cancer; one that didn’t have the destructive side effects of chemotherapy or radiation. She threw herself into her cancer research, dedicating much of her college career to the search for a cure. Her hard work earned her not only a perfect 4.0 GPA, but skyrocketed her career to the forefront of medicine, her use of laser-activated nanoparticles becoming a new, innovative way to treat cancer. Her studies have given people who may be squeamish about the long-term effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy another alternative to rid themselves of the disease.
But what are nanoparticles and how do they work? In order to understand that, it’s important to understand what happens to the body during cancer treatment. In order to combat the rapid growth of cancer cells within the body, most treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy rely on the destruction of cells and DNA. Through the body’s exposure to these chemicals, these cancer cells begin to deteriorate. However, this area of effect spans over the entire body, resulting in the destruction of healthy cells as well. This is what causes side effects such as fatigue, hair loss, and neutropenia. After cancer treatment, many patients become immunocompromised, making it easier for them to contract various serious illnesses in the future. However, nanoparticles remove cancer cells using a less destructive process. Rather than using heat or radiation, these particles are magnetic, removing the cancer cells without damaging the healthy ones.
“When we apply a magnetic field externally, these nanoparticles spin. We made the nanoparticles attach to the surfaces of cancer cells and then induced the spinning to mechanically destroy the cell membranes.”
Matt Lesniak, MD
This offers a far less invasive alternative to other forms of cancer treatment. Rather than exposing the body to harmful chemicals and radiation that wear down the immune system, these nanoparticles can be directly inserted into cancer cells through the use of lasers, breaking down the cell membrane and subsequently destroying the harmful cells within the body.
At the end of the day, that’s Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green’s main goal: to lighten the load of cancer treatment and ensure that the people who need it are able to keep themselves healthy and happy. Green’s efforts to ensure that extend beyond her efforts in the lab. Aside from tirelessly working towards the cure for cancer, Green also founded the Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation, which is a non-profit organization that works towards making cancer treatment more accessible and more affordable. A foundation which she named after the aunt she lost to the disease.
The effect of Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green’s hard work span further than her cancer research and her dedication to the cause. Having a woman of color at the forefront of medicine sends a message to society that it doesn’t matter your gender, race, or background. All a person needs to bring the change they want to see in the world is themselves. Green states that she hopes her efforts will inspire young African American girls to enter the field, as well as remind them of the limitless potential that they have within themselves.
Want to learn about more women at the top of their field? Check out more articles like this one!
