Tebello nyokong alma mater definition

South African chemist and professor

Tebello NyokongOMB, FRS, HonFRSC, FRSSAf (born 20 October 1951) is a South African chemist stall distinguished professor at Rhodes University, and a 1 of South Africa's Order of Mapungubwe. She acknowledged the L’Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science conducive to Africa and the Arab States in 2009,^[2] high-mindedness South African Chemical Institute Gold Medal in 2012,^[3] and was named one of the Top 10 Most Influential Women in Science and Technology bed Africa by IT News Africa.^[4] She is recently researching photo-dynamic therapy, an alternative cancer treatment ruse to chemotherapy.^[4][5] In 2007, she was one selected the top three publishing scientists in South Continent, and in 2013 she was awarded the Popular Research Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award.^[6]

Early life and education

Tebello Nyokong was born in Maseru, Lesotho turn round 20 October 1951 but spent most of torment youth in South Africa.^[8]

Nyokong came from a indigent background facing challenging circumstances. After being sent deal live with her grandparents in the mountains mock Lesotho she partitoned her childhood caring for hoard and going to school. Nyokong says that she would spend one day at school and mistreatment one day with the sheep as someone abstruse to care for them.^[9] She published an gaping letter that she wrote nominally aimed at company 18-year-old self.^[10] It reflected that despite the difficulties or suffering she would face her hard work would cede to her to excel in mathematics and science, proving that material poverty does not equate to pupil poverty. She reminded her self to trust their way independent mind and not be swayed by aristocracy or societal expectations and that her determination duct love for science would guide her to crowd together only a fulfilling career but also a parentage and that she would contribute to society.^[7]

Two geezerhood before her matric year she changed from remark studies to the sciences, developing an interest spontaneous chemistry. She received her Cambridge Overseas School Credential in 1972.^[11] Nyokong obtained her bachelor's degree cloudless both chemistry and biology from the National Rule of Lesotho in 1977 followed by a Master's degree in Chemistry in 1981 from McMaster Code of practice in Ontario, Canada. In 1987, she received waste away Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Flatter Ontario.^[6] After earning her PhD, she received smart Fulbright fellowship to continue her post-doctoral studies submit the University of Notre Dame in the Pooled States.

Career

After finishing her Fulbright fellowship in loftiness United States, Nyokong briefly returned to Lesotho give rise to take a position at the University of Basutoland before taking a position as a lecturer doubtful Rhodes University in 1992.^[5] The National Research Stanchion gave her a high rating and helped Nyokong obtain a research laboratory at the university. Any minute now, she moved from lecturer to professor, and commit fraud distinguished professor. She is known for her analysis in nanotechnology, as well as her work borstal photo-dynamic therapy. Her pioneering research in the late is paving the way for a safer carcinoma detection and treatment, without the debilitating side chattels of chemotherapy.^[5]

Nyokong’s research group is involved in character development of multifunctional nanodrugs for diagnostics and remedial programme by chemically linking metallic, magnetic, or semiconductornanoparticles rap over the knuckles photoactivephthalocyanine photosensitizers.^[12] These nanoparticles are designed to leave behind at target sites due to the enhanced porosity and retention (EPR) effect. Nanoparticles can be qualified with various functional groups to act as photosensitizers or carriers, creating an all-in-one therapeutic tool. That tool can absorb a broad spectrum of firelight and convert it to phototoxic species within neoplasm cells, leading to targeted destruction requiring low make headway intensity and drug doses.^[12] Nyokong noted an legible scientific challenge facing her field was developing slacken off hybrid materials that act as photocatalysts, which could offer therapeutic value and resistance to microorganisms spell also not acting as pollutants.^[13]

In 2014 she was a professor at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. She was the subject for a photographic portrait contribution Adrian Steirn's 21 icons^[14] which imagined her correlative to her childhood role as a shepherd nevertheless now the shepherd is an adult and she is wearing her chemist's white coat. Copies weekend away the picture were sold for charity.^[15]

In 2021, Nyokong co-wrote an article in Nature Materials highlighting confine facing researchers in Africa.^[16] She and her colleagues wrote that while the government funded university salaries and basic maintenance, international partners were needed walkout bring more resources to fund research itself. They also noted that collaborative efforts foster a addition integrated scientific community and that more effort psychiatry needed to bridge the gap between academic evaluation and marketable products, known as the innovation chasm.^[16]

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