Research by a Tanzanian woman scientist is turning up roses in South Africa and could save millions of people the pain of tuberculosis and other ailments which she calls "diseases of poverty."
Dr Hulda Shaidi Swai, now principal researcher with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria, South Africa, is engaged in pioneering work that seeks to employ "nanotechnology" to treat TB more efficiently, in less the time it takes now - and hopes to do so in safer ways than has been achieved through existing drug therapies.
"It all started as a dream - a concept - for which I'm now principal investigator," she says in an exclusive interview with WOMAN Magazine, slated for Thursday, this week.
Commenting on these developments, the Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) Director General, Dr Hassan Mshinda hailed Dr Swai's approach, saying it could also be applied at home to form a platform technology team comprising the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), the Arusha-based Nelson Institute of Technology and the University of Dar es Salaam.
"A patent is more valuable than any mineral," he says of Dr Swai's provisional application for an Intellectual Property protection, which has since won EU approval. As a platform technology, it can be used to develop other therapeutic compounds with similar challenges as TB drugs, Dr Mshinda says.
In the meantime, Dr Swai is already developing 'nano' reformulations for Africa's other big killers - the anti-retrovirals and anti-malarials. They are soon to be followed by new ventures into sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis), bilharzia (schistosomiasis) and river blindness.
Nanotechnology is a new frontier in medicine; the small 'nano' devices that are being developed can be regulated to ensure that medication is released at the proper time - directly to the affected cells -- and without the human error that comes with forgetting to take oral prescriptions.
Two years ago, there were at least 25 ways that were revolutionizing medicine - and Dr Swai's reformulated drug delivery system (DDS) currently under development promises to join this elite club and technology of the future.
Dr Swai is leading a team of 19 people at her CSIR stable -- codenamed the Nanomedicine Platform for Infectious Diseases of Poverty - which includes seven post-doctorate scientists, three PhD and four Masters of Science (MSc) students, two technicians and a project manager.
She also has the backing of the top leadership in South Africa, including former president Thabo Mbeki.
The size of a 'nanometre' is like a billionth minced particle of a metre - and 'nanotechnology' is defined as a branch of technology that deals with structures that are less than 100 nanometres long.
It is from such miniscule fractions that Dr Swai and her team pin their hopes of finding new ways to address current shortcomings in treating poverty-related diseases (PRDs) - such as HIV/Aids, malaria and TB through novel therapies made possible by nanotech.
She now faults all four of the first-line drugs in current use against PRDs, saying they all fall short on solubility, bioavailability, safety, efficacy, stability and resistance.
"Despite these shortfalls, too few drugs are being developed for PRDs," she says.
To date, Dr Swai has demonstrated in a mice-TB infected model that equal doses of the drug in current use - when administered in her patented nanomedicine-based DDS -- could be taken just once instead of swallowing it every day for six to nine months running.
Instead, she now aims to reduce the current treatment run to just two months, without the inherent toxic side-effects and that, with her novel approach, patients would be more likely to treatment regimens.
"This will also lead to a dramatic cost reduction - and curb of transmission of TB - as it would also significantly reduce drug-resistant strains," she says.
By James Mpinga
allAfrica.com