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Bongani Ndlovu, Chronicle Reporter
At 19, Miss Rutendo Kahari is clear on what she wants to do in her life — to help heal people after watching her father swallow heaps of pills for 10 years, and had to endure the pain of his death when she was 16.

Miss Kahari who studied Mathematics, Biology and Chemistry at Speciss College in Bulawayo says she is an aspiring biomedical researcher.

To begin her journey, Miss Kahari is the only African to be selected by Elective Africa to be part of a programme, where she will shadow doctors for five weeks in Kenya.

All other members of this cohort are from the United States and she is being mentored by some of Africa’s and the world’s most accomplished biotech scientists, including those from Harvard University.

Rutendo at her school’s laboratory

She will go to university next year and the laboratory experience will give her an advantage in her application.

Biomedical research is the broad area of science that looks for ways to prevent and treat diseases that cause illness and death in people and animals.

This general field of research includes many areas of both the life and physical sciences.

If all goes well, Miss Kahari will be interning at Coast Provincial General Hospital in Mombasa, the second largest public hospital in Kenya after Kenyatta National Hospital.

Coast Provincial General Hospital in Mombasa

The 700-bed facility serves a primary population of over a million people and a secondary population of about 3 million people.

Miss Kahari wants to study Phage Therapy and CRISPR.

Phage therapy, which uses bacterial viruses (phages) to treat bacterial infections, has been around for almost a century.

The universal decline in the effectiveness of antibiotics has generated renewed interest in revisiting this practice.

CRISPR is short for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat.”

It’s a bit of DNA that scientists first noticed in the immune system of bacteria.

That inspired the gene-editing technique that everyone now calls CRISPR.

However, she has to raise US$7 500 for her to carry out this internship, as it will be a stepping stone in her quest to be a biomedical researcher.

Miss Kahari shared how her father, Mr Grain Kahari’s battle with conductive heart problems made her pay close attention to how medicine works.

She said when she was eight, her father suffered a stroke and she was desperate to “fix” him.

“When I was eight my father was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and a stroke that affected his hearing and speech.

As a result, he used to take 16 tablets a day!

I used to help with his medication by sorting out the doses and making sure he didn’t miss any.

I was obsessed with understanding how all those tablets worked because I wanted so desperately to fix my dad.

“He would explain to me how the pink one thinned his blood.

The white one removed water from his body.

The orange one relieved his heart strain.

I didn’t realise it then, but that was the spark of my interest in biomedicine,” said Miss Kahari.

She said being a biomedical researcher was her calling, which she realised when her father died on February 12, 2020, a month before her 17th birthday.

“When my father passed away, that’s when I knew my purpose was to heal.

As I pursue my studies in biomedical science, I want to honour my father by doing everything I can to help and to heal, so that others do not suffer as he did.

“I miss his presence because it feels safe and secure in every sense having a father figure.

You know, doing what dads do, which is looking out for his girls.

When he was ill, it was an emotional roller coaster because one day he would wake up strong giving us hope that all is well and then the next minute he would be down, shattering all our hopes.

But never did the thought of him dying ever cross our minds in the 10 years he was sick.

We felt like we had seen it all, so what was the worst that could possibly happen,” said Miss Kahari.

She said her dream was to bring the power of science into the health care system of Africa.

“My dream is to bring the power of emerging science to the healthcare system of Africa.

I also hope to contribute to the development of treatments for some prevalent diseases in Africa such as cholera, malaria, HIV and tuberculosis.

I’ve always loved helping others, so I’ve served as an ambassador for several organisations that promote early interest in science including Youth STEM 2030, Girls in STEM Trust and Science Learning,” said Miss Kahari.

She said this will be a great opportunity to advance her studies.

“I definitely need financial support, more opportunities such as the premedical internship to gain more knowledge around global health and moral support from organisations in science and healthcare,” said Miss Kahari.

She added that she has not been sitting around, and so far, she has raised over US$2 000, through her Go Fund Me Account.

Her mentor, Dr Jennifer Jones, said Miss Kahari is the youngest member of her pre-medical internship cohort and the only African.

“All other members of this cohort are American and some are from Princeton University (one of the most prestigious universities in the US) Rutendo is being mentored by some of Africa’s and the world’s most accomplished biotech scientists, including members of the MIT and Harvard communities.

She participated in an elite, exclusive group of 13 international students for a revolutionary biotech learning experience in Virtual Reality,” said Dr Jones, the Founder of Green Ivy Schools in the United States of America.

The teenager’s mother, Mrs Janet Kahari said: “As a mother I feel super proud.

God has given me more than I deserve through Rutendo.

Nursing my husband for 10 continuous years and his subsequent death made me believe that good things in life were never meant for me.

Now when I see the goodness of God through Rutendo, I am overwhelmed.

My prayer is that the Lord blesses Rutendo so that she makes a positive difference in peoples’ health.”

– Follow on Twitter @bonganinkunzi .