Believe in Black women!
Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green just became the first person to successfully cure cancer in mice using nanoparticle technology, Black Enterprise reports.
Green was first inspired to pursue cancer treatment efforts after watching her aunt and uncle battle with the disease. Her aunt, Ora Lee, eventually lost her battle with cancer and her uncle, General Lee Smith, struggled with the side effects of chemotherapy. Seeing their experiences firsthand motivated Green to find a cure.
Her work began as an undergraduate student at Alabama A&M University where she studied physics and optics. She went on to pursue her masters in physics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and eventually began working at the Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Department of Pathology.
Her new cancer treatment uses laser-activated nanoparticles that were found to successfully cure cancer within 15 days in mice. The treatment doesn’t require chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery and is a revolutionary breakthrough in the field. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded Green with a $1.1 million grant to continue her cancer treatment research.
Breakthroughs in cancer treatment are critical to ultimately curing the disease. With every new treatment, the life expectancy for cancer patients goes up. While people are living longer after a cancer diagnosis, studies still show that roughly 1600 people will die from cancer each day in 2020 in the United States.
Thankfully, because of the work that Dr. Green is doing, we are one step closer to a cure!
Thank you!
Photo Courtesy of @drhadiyahgreen/Twitter