In celebration of Ada Lovelace day we are recognizing Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green. Dr. Green is making amazing strides in the fight against cancer using lasers to target cancer cells. After watching family members suffer through cancer and cancer treatments she knew there had to be a better way. Via NBC News:
While working towards her doctorate, Dr. Green began reading about laser technology and thought that she could use lasers to target cancer cells directly. She spent three years in a lab, developing her laser technology that uses nanoparticles to destroy cancer cells. This way the healthy cells wouldn’t be affected by the treatment.
Testing her treatment on mice was a success and Dr. Green became the first person to successfully cure cancer using nanoparticles.
“It’s hard becoming one of the first. While you’re going through it, it’s not fun, it’s not cute,” she said.
Since cancer treatments can cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Dr. Green wants her treatment to be affordable. Her goal is to provide treatment via a nonprofit and she wants her work to be affordable to the average person – She doesn’t want to sell it to the pharmaceutical industry.
She founded the Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation to support the research that her auntee inspired and hopes to change the way cancer is treated and reduce human suffering and she recently won a $1.1 million grant to further her patent-pending technology to treat cancer.
October 10th is Ada Lovelace Day! Today the world celebrates all of the accomplishments of women in science, art, design, technology, engineering, and math. Each year, Adafruit highlights a number of women who are pioneering their fields and inspiring women of all ages to make their voices heard. Today we will be sharing the stories of women that we think are modern day “Adas” alongside historical women that have made impacts in science and math.
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