{"id":97140,"date":"2025-10-22T14:26:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/97140\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T14:26:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:26:14","slug":"samantha-loggenberg-honoured-for-research-linking-indigenous-plants-to-cancer-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/97140\/","title":{"rendered":"Samantha Loggenberg honoured for research linking indigenous plants to cancer treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South African researcher Samantha Loggenberg, a PhD candidate at the University of Pretoria, has been honoured with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forwomeninscience.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">L\u2019Or\u00e9al\u2013UNESCO For Women in Science Award<\/a> for her groundbreaking work exploring the use of indigenous medicinal plants in treating triple-negative breast cancer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The reason why I lean so heavily into this research is that breast cancer is one of the most aggressive types of cancer. It&#8217;s one of those cancers that just readily metastasises.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Loggenberg&#8217;s research builds on traditional knowledge of local plants used for healing, translating that wisdom into modern scientific validation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Her current study focuses on identifying specific compounds that could stop the spread of breast cancer cells.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She says the recognition has been &#8220;liberating and motivating&#8221;, adding that awards like this help women in science overcome bias and isolation in a field still dominated by men.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Being a woman in science comes with so many challenges, and almost an unspoken bias towards women as well. When it comes to the L\u2019Or\u00e9al-UNESCO For Women in Science Award, it felt liberating. It reignites your passion and your confidence to kind of say I&#8217;m on the right path, what I&#8217;m doing does matter, and I think it is super inspirational.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She also hopes the award will inspire young women to pursue scientific research despite its challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the end, it is going to be worth it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Her research forms part of a wider initiative to bridge traditional medicine and modern oncology, with the goal of one day discovering plant-based cancer therapies that can save lives.<\/p>\n<p>To listen to Samantha Loggenberg in conversation with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.primediaplus.com\/capetalk\/lunch-with-pippa-hudson\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CapeTalk&#8217;s Pippa Hudson<\/a>, click the audio below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South African researcher Samantha Loggenberg, a PhD candidate at the University of Pretoria, has been honoured with the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[38086,38087,38090,38089,38088,103,61,60,385,371,43,3111,38093,38092,38091],"class_list":["post-97140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-ewn","tag-ewn-news","tag-ewn-south-africa","tag-eye-witness-news","tag-eyewitness-news","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-medication","tag-news","tag-news-today","tag-prime-media-plus","tag-primedia-plus","tag-primedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}