 Thank you very much, Amna, as a virtual club for you and so we'll move on to our next speaker for this morning session. Next speaker is Holda Sway. So Holda, please share your screen and the floor is yours. Okay, great. Yeah. Good afternoon here. Thank you all for inviting me. I'm going to talk on nanomedicine, I'm not a physicist, so my talk will be more of biomedical sciences, which is my specialty. So, I mean, I mean, I mean to define what nanomedicine is. It's actually about manipulation of matters that I'm atomic level and since I'm going to focus on nanomedicine, it will be application of not technology in health, diagnostics and monitoring of diseases. I won't go into detail on diagnosis and monitoring of disease, because I want to talk about the Otambo chair, which is nanomedicine in malaria, which I think is more important for me at this moment. Okay. What makes nanomedicine or nanotechnology very important is the size. So we are talking the size of a virus as you can see here. The size is around 100 millimeters, so it's a size of a virus. Hence you can deliver things intracellularly and whatever you want to do, whatever if it is a drug, it can actually go through the epithelial very easily because of the size. It can cross all the biological barrier. So, again, what size are we talking about. So, is 0.1% of a human here? Yes, that's how small it is, or rather 1% of the smallest human cell. So, the potency of nanomedicine is a size and the fact that it can cross all the biological barrier very, very easily. So some military is not an issue anymore. And also the availability improves sometimes even 10 times. So drug situation where we are toxic. When they are reformulated nanomedicine, they are no longer toxic. That one come later. That's a typical nano-carrier. Nano-carrier can be a lipid, it can be a variable polymer, and inside the core, one can put a drug. You can also attach a ligand, which is, which can actually direct the drug to go where it's supposed to go. Let's say if you are a cancer patient, the receptor can go to where the protein is expressed, so the ligand can be chosen in such a way that it can just zoom to where it's supposed to go. By doing that, you use less drug and you actually target the cells which are sick, which are cancerous, such that toxicity is minimal. And the drug which was, because most of the cancer drugs are very potent, but they're also very toxic. So because of the reduced dose or the targeting ability, one reduces the dose up to maybe only 10%. So that's the exciting thing about nano-medicine, and that's what makes all the difference. And also, one can actually cottage with fluorescence, and can be able to monitor it by convocable microscope and see exactly where the particle is. In that way, you can actually diagnose where the cancer is or whatever disease is by using the fluorescence nanoparticles. So in such a way you can do diagnostics, you can image, you can follow up, you can be able to follow the progress of that disease. So a lot of drugs have not been able to get to the market in one wonders why. And when we look at this picture here is mainly the PK, that is the drug is not able to cross the epithelial wall to go to the mainstream or they are digested or the nature in the main stomach or in the liver. But when they're encapsulated, for example, with lipids, they can bypass the liver without being degraded and able to go into the bloodstream and especially if they're targeted, go to where they're targeted. So a lot of pharmaceutical industries now are going back to drugs, which you failed and look into what was the problem. And for example, like this diagram here, if it's a problem with half-life or toxicity or dose or those frequency, this can only, all of this can be addressed by using nano-medicine or nano-carriers. So that's what nano-carriers can do. So I wanted you to use this technology to come up with a new and familiar drugs. We've got so many herbal extracts here, which works, but it means taking a cup of a percussion and which is not nice. Most of them are very bitter, but with nano-science we believe we can come from a cup of a percussion to a drug or a tablet. So that's what the OTAMP award will do for us. Yeah. Am I audio enough? Sorry, yeah. Hold it. You're fine. Just for all the participants, make sure you're muted, please. Thank you. Now I'm just going to take you through a quick clip on OTAMP award, which explains everything. It's only, I think, three to four minutes, and then I'll finish after that. I've been evolving 50 very senior and distinguished professors in Africa. I'm excited to be one of the 10 professors, and indeed this is the highlight of my profession. My main aim of this research is to use nano-technology to develop new anti-maladial drugs using the POTED herbal extract as well as the existing maladial drugs which has poor availability. Nano-technology will address all the shortcomings. Malaria is one of the world's deadliest infectious disease. Around 2 million people infected every year, and half a million die of malaria each year. Sadly, 90% of the death occurs in sub-Saharan Africa, and a child dies every 12 seconds. Let me repeat. A child dies of malaria every 12 seconds. Currently, there's no effective vaccine for malaria. The earliest drug discovered for malaria is Quinean, which was discovered in 1820. But this drug has shown a lot of side effects, and is not popular anymore. The successor was Chloroquine. Chloroquine was very potent for years, but it has now already suffered resistance. The parasite is resistant to Chloroquine, so Chloroquine has been withdrawn. Presently, Atmosia, a herbal compound, is the only potent anti-maladial drug. However, resistance has already been reported in Cambodia in southern Asia. In summary, all anti-maladial drugs available today are challenged by poor availability. Short half life and toxicity is the world. As such, there's a need of addressing these shortcomings as well as developing new anti-maladial drugs. Nanotechnology has revolutionized medicine due to its ability to improve the survival ability of this compound by increasing its ability to reduce toxicity and improve dose-endose frequency. This technology will enhance research towards the development of novel anti-maladial drugs from both potent isolated herbal compounds, as well as existing drugs which needs optimization. Nanotechnology has been used to revolutionize anti-cancer drugs with very exciting results. A number of cancer drugs could not be commercialized because of shortcomings, but with nanotechnology these drugs are on the market today as we speak. My research will actually involve encapsulating both anti-maladial compounds based on herbal compounds and also the existing anti-maladial which are lacking in potents into nano-carriers of nanoscale. Being nano-scaled, they can cross all the biological barrier and be able to get into a bloodstream. Moreover, we can actually target these nano-carriers into the disease cells. For example, in malaria we are talking of red blood cells, so we can target the red blood cells within the carrier encapsulated with anti-maladial inside. This will be a good opportunity for developing a product, commercialize it, for the first time in the region you will be able to come up with your own anti-maladial drug and save millions of lives. The project will also expand the infrastructure, also create the critical mass which is lacking in form of PhDs, a master's in nanoscience and nanotechnology which will be able to take this technology to another level and in a way will sustain that technology. This is in line with the AU agenda of 2063. We are very passionate on this, good things are coming, just watch the space. So that's the AUTUMB award and it's a five-year project with three phases, it's up to 15 years if one performs and there's various themes. So my theme is malaria but others have got different themes depending on one's profession. So we believe that this AUTUMB award will contribute to excellence in research in Africa as well as promote the legacy of AUTUMB. So in this case we've got two compounds here which are very potent but one is toxic and the other one is insoluble. So we believe these two compounds which has been prepared by Professor Malabo and he has published about them widely. We may be able now to bring them into nanoscience and encapsulate them and be able to come up with a new drug out of the two. There's quite a few around but we're going to start with these two because they're very potent so far. The only thing is that they have this toxicity and problems with it. So that's what I'll start on. Yeah, that's about malaria. So there's various ways of protecting ourselves but like the mosquito net. Normally the malaria parasite, the mosquito which carries malaria, normally bites you between five o'clock and seven o'clock. At that time you're not in the net, you're still outside so most of it doesn't help. And as I mentioned earlier that most of the drugs are not potent. And what we need is to develop new drugs from the existing local herbal and malaria's in using the efficacy. As I said already in the slide and together the development of drug resistance because the problem with they come up with a drug but if he fears later they will end up with a resistance. So those are drugs which are in the market but all of them are lacking in one way or two. So new to the time I won't go through each and every one of them. But it's all about tough life, it's about poor availability, solubility. So with malaria there's three cycles where we can interrupt the parasite. The first cycle is when one is bitten by the mosquito but the second cycle is when the parasite is in the liver. It normally stays for two weeks incubating the liver before it comes out and at this point one is not sick. So if we can, I'm told that there's some proteins which I've expressed when the parasite is in the liver. So if you can identify those proteins and find a ligand and target the parasite in the liver stage we may be able to eradicate malaria all together. Otherwise if it comes out of the liver then it goes to the bloodstream and when it goes to the bloodstream as you can see here. It goes to the ready blood cells in the one which is affected. And so while they are the burst up in the parasite all over looking for another cell and one is sick and very feverish. And that's why if you are not treated one can die. So we are looking at whether targeting either in the liver or outside the liver but all in all we want a drug which can be very effective. And maybe not one, two or three or four because if you, when it's having only one drug is very worrying it's anything can happen with the resistance coming up. That's just the detail of the cycle of malaria. I'm not going to detail because maybe I lose most of you. So you can like here is in the liver stage here in the blood cells. So when you have about four, you have four minutes left. Okay, so for example when it's in the in the red blood cells that the pH is very high. So one can tell you through pH. There's some proteins which are expressed here in the liver. So all that can be targeted. When it was in CSI where I worked for years on nanoscience and nano medicine. We were given a drug called fennel queen by by Novartis, and you were able to improve the availability from 55% to 99. So it was no longer toxic because it was cardio toxicity at the level of the level of diminishing it. But by reducing the level, I mean the by improving the availability, we could only give the patient 50% of the drug. So it's such a drug with the longer toxic. So they were able to commercialize it. I don't know how far they've gone, but when I was there, they were talking to commercializing it because of the new type of cardio toxicity. So that's what nano can do. Yeah, so we once I even it out a drug which can be slow released, we can caught it with kites and open by great polymers and raise so slowly rather than taking it daily one can take it once a week. Those are options. We'll be looking at that this is a typical example of not through which is a cancer drug, which by putting it in into nano carriers. Half life was improved from two to three hours up to 50 to 80 hours so you can see what a nano carrier nano medicine can do that that half life can be improved tremendously, meaning that the right it will be longer in the in the bloodstream and more effective. I'm just finishing. This is just a brach, it's a drug called a part cell or a breakdown when it's in nano. Yeah, it was in so almost in so little but by putting into nano carrier, so we'll be to increase seven times as you can see from 2000 to 14,000. So nano carrier can nano medicine can do to drugs. So we are using this technology, we're using this technology for for a month later this is a final one. Quickly. This mice here was given what one milligram a day left for two weeks and this was given 100 microgram once every three days at the end of the day they were all. They're all free of intercontinental but when you look at them, the one is actually sickly, and this one is well and it looks healthy, meaning that there was less drug but above availability. You see, here the drug was was was there but poor availability so most of the drug ended up we into into the kidneys and they live in the kidney has to work overtime to get rid of the extra drug because of the poor availability but here, the drug was targeted and it was able to go directly to Yeah, I think that's my last slide. And I believe that to work with the STP, we can we can come up with a collaboration whereby we can use some of the techniques, because what we want to come up with at the end of the day is a new antimalania drugs, which is going to get addressed a problem in the tropics. Thank you very much for listening. I hope I was not too fast. Thank you very much for this very inspiring talk. The floor is open for questions we have about four minutes. So, if you want to ask a question again please write in the chat, or if you want you can raise your hand and and ask the question yourself. Okay. Manicor is has a question for you. Okay, so it's a bit of a long question are you. So, let me try. Manicor do you want to unmute. Yeah, but I think we can keep it for the discussion but it's very quickly is talking about bio availability. We I think we tend to forget that we could also be it could also be interesting to make insecticides or transmission blocking drugs are available to the mosquito. So readapt this technology and these ideas, not to target, you know, drugs to Malaria in the vertebrate host, but to better deliver especially exploiting the adrophobicity of the nanoparticles. So attached to the bed net insecticides or better defined transmission blocking drugs to the mosquito. It will be something like making more insecticide more effective and less toxic, because they will be delivered specifically to the other organism. So just for the sake of discussion. I don't think anybody's actually working on this because it looks like high technology to tackle mosquito why this high technology and costly technology is better to be spent and invested in the human host, but it will be an idea to think about the other side. Vector control over. I think it's a bit of a moment minded with a project is starting in January. So we're looking into collaborators with various ideas. So, the idea I gave you just one of the ideas but one is welcome to to bring other ideas is a 15 years project. So a lot can be done. Yeah, thank you. Just, you know, to, to, to enlarge discussion, not really to suggest to do it, but to think about. Thank you. Niko. Are there other questions from the audience. There's a question from Ken William he asks, does reduced dose frequency necessarily imply under dosage. Because of the improved by availability. And when you put the drug in nano career that the biovaluability sometimes improved by 10, up to 10% when I was working at CSR, we were able to show that the drug the biovaluability was improved by 10, 10, 10 times. So, but by doing that definitely you are taking less drug. So it means less toxins, and the drug especially if it's targeted to that to the sick cells won't be available to all part of you are your black body like in the kidneys and everywhere. So he just goes to the ways needed and attack and attack the sick cells and that's it. So we'll be less drug less toxicity. Okay, thank you. Any more questions from the audience. Okay.