{"id":138439,"date":"2025-10-22T14:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/138439\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T14:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:34:09","slug":"samantha-loggenberg-honoured-for-research-linking-indigenous-plants-to-cancer-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/138439\/","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><strong>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:<\/strong><\/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":138440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274],"tags":[18,61303,61304,61307,61306,61305,135,19,17,11,462,5,1829,61310,61309,61308],"class_list":{"0":"post-138439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ewn","10":"tag-ewn-news","11":"tag-ewn-south-africa","12":"tag-eye-witness-news","13":"tag-eyewitness-news","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-medication","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-news-today","21":"tag-prime-media-plus","22":"tag-primedia-plus","23":"tag-primedia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}