Illuminating the Future of Cancer Care Through Radiopharmacy

There are people whose lives seem to move in a quiet but unmistakable current, as though they were always meant to arrive somewhere meaningful, somewhere necessary. When you meet Dr. Myra Ochieng, you encounter such a person. She has a gentle way of speaking, deliberate and assured, the tone of someone who does not need to raise her voice to make the room lean in. Her work sits within a discipline that most people still know very little about – radiopharmacy and theranostics – yet the outcomes of that work have the power to change how cancer is detected, understood, and treated across Africa. It is a field that requires not only scientific intelligence but patience, precision, responsibility, and an unwavering sense of purpose. And Myra has all of that in abundance.

Her journey began in Nairobi, where she attended Loreto Msongari, a school known for shaping young women into thoughtful, capable contributors to society. Even then, she carried with her the habit of inquiry – that subtle, persistent curiosity about how the world works beneath the surface.

Instead of simply accepting information as it was given, she always wanted to understand the mechanisms behind things, to trace outcomes back to origins, to follow questions beyond the point where most people stop asking. This natural orientation toward understanding and discovery is what led her to pursue a Bachelor of Pharmacy at USIU–Africa, where she first began to carve a path in healthcare, though she could not yet have known how specifically her trajectory would take shape.

The moment that altered her journey did not arrive dramatically, all at once, but rather with a quiet and powerful clarity. During an observership at the Radiopharmacy and Nuclear Medicine Department at Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital (KUTRRH), she encountered an approach to medicine that was unlike anything she had seen before. Here, cancer was not just a disease to be treated broadly with generalised therapies. It was a condition that could be visualised, targeted, and traced at the molecular level.

She watched radiopharmaceuticals such as F-18 FDG, F-18 PSMA, and Tc-99m being prepared and quality-checked — each dose calibrated to guide physicians in diagnosing or treating illness with extraordinary precision. The idea that medicine could be this exact, this deliberately measured, this attuned to the very architecture of the human body, struck her with quiet force. It was in that moment that she recognised the shape of her calling.

Her growing fascination with nuclear medicine led her to the world of radiopharmacy, a field very few pharmacists in Kenya or even across Africa have journeyed into, largely because it requires a deep cross-disciplinary foundation – chemistry, oncology, radiation physics, biomedical imaging, quality assurance, and regulatory science, all held together under a demanding ethic of safety and accuracy.

Yet for Myra, the challenge was not something to avoid. It was the doorway. She applied for and was awarded the IAEA Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, a globally competitive scholarship designed to support women pursuing careers in nuclear science and its applications in health. The fellowship enabled her to pursue a Master of Pharmacy in Radiopharmacy at Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University in South Africa, where she immersed herself fully in advanced molecular imaging and theranostics — the combined field where the same molecule is used both to diagnose and to treat cancer cells.

Today, as Clinical Operations Lead (Radiopharmacist) at Xenopia Group Ltd, Myra’s work is both intricate and consequential. Every day, she oversees the preparation and radiolabelling of radiopharmaceuticals, ensuring that each dose administered to a patient meets the highest standards of sterility, precision, and safety. She coordinates supply chains, engages with regulatory frameworks, monitors radiation safety protocols, and upholds the delicate balance between scientific rigour and human need.

In radiopharmacy, there is no room for approximation. Every microcurie matters. Every calculation is deliberate. Every deviation is accounted for. Behind every PET scan that helps a patient finally get the answers they have been searching for, there is a radiopharmacist like Myra, whose work is rarely seen but deeply felt.

Among the milestones in her career, one stands with particular significance: the contribution she made toward introducing Lutetium-177 (Lu-177) radioligand therapy in Kenya. This therapy has reshaped the landscape of cancer treatment by targeting cancer cells directly, delivering therapeutic radiation specifically where it is needed while minimising damage to healthy tissue. This is not just scientific innovation; it is hope made tangible. The kind of hope that allows patients with metastatic prostate cancer or neuroendocrine tumours – who previously had only limited treatment options – to see a future that feels possible again. Myra was instrumental in helping make this therapy accessible in Kenya, working across multidisciplinary teams to ensure that the transition from possibility to implementation was safe, compliant, and sustainable.

Yet, beyond her technical accomplishments, what shapes Myra’s presence in the field is her genuine commitment to mentorship and knowledge sharing. She knows that the future of radiopharmacy in Kenya depends not on one practitioner, but on many — on a new generation of pharmacists, scientists, oncology clinicians, and imaging specialists who understand the power and responsibility of precision medicine. She speaks at workshops, advises students, and actively participates in building interest and capacity in nuclear medicine education. Her leadership is not loud; it is steady, invitational, and deeply rooted in service.

Outside the professional space, she nurtures a life of texture and colour. She travels, often choosing her destinations based on live music experiences rather than landmarks. She reads. She attends film screenings. She spends time in the gym. She invests in friendships that make room for laughter and lightness. She knows that a profession built around caring for others requires that you also learn to care for yourself.

Her guiding philosophy comes from Marie Curie, the scientist who changed the world with her work on radioactivity: “We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing must be attained.” Myra holds that belief not as inspiration, but as responsibility — the recognition that one’s gifts are not accidental, but purposeful, and must be lived forward with clarity and courage.

In the story of Dr. Myra Ochieng, we witness the emergence of a new kind of African healthcare leader – one who does not simply participate in global scientific advancement, but actively shapes it from here, on home soil. Her work signals a future in which cancer care across Africa is not defined by limited options or distant referrals, but by precision, dignity, and access. She is not waiting for the future to arrive. She is already helping build it – one radioligand dose, one trained student, one transformed patient journey at a time.

And the world is quietly, steadily, beautifully changing because of it.