Dr ‘Makhotso Lekhooa is a Senior Lecturer at the PCCPD, faculty of Health Science North West university.  ‘Makhotso is an early career pharmacologist with strong background in ethno-pharmacology, drug-herb interactions and pre-clinical drug development research. Her niche focus is ethno-psychopharmacology, using preclinical rodent models of depression to establish scientific safety and efficacy of South African indigenous plants as either monotherapies or adjunctive therapy to the current anti-depressants.  Furthermore, she is a GLP study director to oversee client study planning, interpretation, analysis, documentation and reporting of results according to OECD guidelines.  Her dream of taking medicinal plants from the farm into the clinic was born while interning at the Medical Research Council IKS-unit, and pursuing post-graduate studies.  Her PhD in pharmacology was titled "Development of a  model to characterize the effect of Phela on selected immune markers in immune-supressed rat."  This work received a DST women in science Phd award in 2013.  She has co-authored 6 articles in peer reviewed journals and 30 conference presentations. She gives back by serving on the South African Health products regulation agency complementary medicines subcommittee and national society of Pharmacology. She mentors post graduate students and is involved in capacity builidng programs for early career scientist of International union of Basic and clinical Pharmacology