Dr Nehemiah Latolla, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Nelson Mandela University's Department of Human Physiology, has been awarded a prestigious Australia-Africa Universities Network Partnership Research and Development Fund grant for his project to co-create sustainable cancer and environmental health solutions from African medicinal plants.

From the moment he spent time in his grandmother's medicinal garden, Dr Nehemiah Latolla knew that he wanted to help heal people.

"But medicine was not for me. I had a sister who was studying nursing, and all the blood and guts, that was too much," he said.

Instead, his love of chemistry took him on a different path that has now culminated in a grant to study the potential of the Eastern Cape's indigenous plants to fight cancer.

"My granny's medicinal garden was the first point of contact for me," he said. "It felt natural for me to study medicinal plants and I listened to all the stories my granny told. But when I was a teenager, it wasn't seen as cool any more to use plants for healing; instead, it was seen as folklore and witchcraft."

His studies in organic chemistry took him to investigating the medicinal qualities of the indigenous Dawidtjieswortel (Cissampelos Capensis),...