2025 Champion of Research Capacity Development and Transformation at South African Higher Education Institutions Award

Prof Lall is a Research Chair at the University of Pretoria who has been placed in the Essential Science Indicators list of the Top 1% of Publication Outputs (citations) in the discipline pharmacology and toxicology and was recently listed as part of Stanford University’s List of the Top 2% Scientist of the World. She is also an adjunct professor at the School of Natural Resources at the University of Missouri, USA, one of the top 15 in the world, and at JSSAHER, Mauritius.

She has made a significant contribution to the field of medicinal plant science. Several medicinal plants with valuable biological activities have been discovered and have led to the granting/filing of 41 patents including three in the USA, as well as in the EU, ARIPO states, China, South Korea, Australia, India, Malaysia, Chile and Japan. As a result, she received the Top Intellectual Property Creator Award (2019) from the University of Pretoria.

She is recognised internationally for her research on the potential of medicinal plants for pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical purposes. Several pharmaceutical products for skin-hyperpigmentation, liver protection and for periodontal problems have been commercialised internationally by both national and international companies in Europe and South Africa. Another 30 prototypes are close to commercialisation, which include adjuvants for tuberculosis, skin-cancer, acne and for periodontal diseases.
Six start-up companies—Bio Indigenous Solution (a community-based company in Pretoria), Blyde Botanics, Valoren, Anoiksen, Scholareview, and Looksci (formed by young postgraduates)—have been established as a result of Prof Lall’s research program.

She has published over 200 research articles; 90 book chapters, with an H-index of 57 and RG score is among the top 5%. Five books comprised of both terrestrial and aquatic medicinal plants have recently been published by leading publishers. In 2016, she was awarded the DSTI-NRF Research Chair in Plant Health Products from Indigenous Knowledge Systems.

Prof Lall has received several prestigious awards in recognition of her work, including the Order of Mapungubwe, South Africa’s highest honour from the Honorable South African President Jacob Zuma (April 2014); the Distinguished Young Women in Science Award in 2011; the University of Pretoria’s Young Exceptional Performers Award (2002); the S2A3-Gencor Bronze Medal Award (April 1997); the Council Gold Medal for her BSc Honours (April 1994); and the UNESCO-L’Oreal Award for Women in Science (one of the 10 selected candidates internationally in March 2002). She is also the national second prize winner of the Gauteng Accelerator Programme (GAP) Innovation Competition; the Biotech Fundi Lifetime Contribution Award; the Exceptional Supervisor’s Award from UP (October 2021); and the Exceptional Academic Achiever Award 2024, to name only a few. At present she is an executive board member and past president of the International Society of Ethnopharmacology (ISE) and the founder and the president of the African Phytomedicine Scientific Society.

She is one of the founders of the Medicinal Plant Sciences programme, founded in 2007 at UP. It is a unique study programme offered as a specialised field at postgraduate level. Prof Lall is the course leader for Phytomedicine and Natural Products, an online course established at UP in 2019. A total of 32 Master’s and 28 Doctorates have graduated under her supervision/co-supervision.

Her commitment to community support through the development of strong relationships with traditional health practitioners and skills development in newly advancing traditional medicines aims to promote the commercialisation of traditional medicines which can compete with conventional pharmaceutical products.