HEALTH SCIENCES Learning from African Traditional Medicine: Fort Hare researcher leads the way of a research programme that will provide the acknowledgment denied to the indigenous knowledge used by healers for centuries. Medicinal plants have long been used in the development of drug therapies, and recent research in this area has focused on new treatment and management of diseases such as malaria, cancer and diabetes. African traditional medicine draws on medicinal plants, and healers have a wealth of knowledge and understanding about their use. The purpose of the ATM Research Unit is to promote IKS by contributing to the body of knowledge concerning the safety and efficacy of African traditional medicine. The focus of the Unit will be to draw on indigenous knowledge systems in the treatment of the top five diseases encountered in the Eastern Cape. Importantly, Dr Bongani Alphouse Nkala researchers will seek to go beyond simply treating indigenous knowers as knowledge holders to be used r Bongani Alphouse Nkala of the as sources of information. The aim Integrative Medical Research is to involve them in the studies DUnit (IMRU) in the Faculty of themselves, a goal which gives Health Sciences is passionate about meaning to claims that indigenous indigenous knowledge systems and knowledge should be valued and their role in treating disease. One brought into the university. Another of Dr Nkala’s many successes has aim is to ensure that indigenous involved the establishment of an knowers are able to benefit from any African Traditional Medicine (ATM) financial gains that result from the Research Unit within the IMRU, application of their knowledge. accompanied by the development 35 | University of Fort Hare