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YOUNG INVENTORS AWARDS: GOLD AWARD: EDWARD QUINTO A Luminous Vision This Filipino biologist has worked tirelessly to make use of low-cost, local resources to help his country and people By Sofia McFarland/MANILA Issue cover-dated January 17, 2002 IT WAS JUST another family dinner. Edward Quinto and his twin brother Johnny ate squid, and afterwards, as his brother threw out the remains he noticed that the squid was glowing in the dark. He showed the glow to Edward, a biology graduate student at Manila's University of Santo Tomas, confirming a hunch Quinto had: that large concentrations of luminous bacteria can be trapped so that they're visible to the naked eye. This hunch has enabled him to make innovative use of a natural process in a way that has a brilliance all its own. Bioluminescence, a phenomenon that allows certain marine creatures to produce their own fluorescent glow, had always intrigued Quinto, who has spent most of his adult life in the laboratories at Santo Tomas in search of homegrown solutions to the problems of his country. With the innocent face of a child and the courtesy of a gentleman, he is referred to by his students as "Sir Ed." His research doesn't limit itself to bioluminescence but rather has a bent towards finding cheap applications for local resources. "The Philippines is just a developing country. Filipinos always believe that products from the West are superior. Probably now it's time for us to develop our own products that are more applicable here," he says. He has already won a national award for a test for E. coli in water using Carnation skimmed-milk powder-the milk reacts to the presence of E.coli by fermenting. Quinto, who like many Asians is lactose intolerant, has also found a way to enrich rice with calcium from eggshells. As a child, Quinto wanted to be an astronomer-he stayed up recently to watch this year's Leonid meteor shower. A bachelor, he spends most weekends with his brother's family south of Manila. When the REVIEW caught up with him, he had just returned from seeing the Harry Potter with his two young nieces. During a research trip to Germany, Quinto had seen bioluminescence used to measure toxins in water: The bacteria live inside or on the surface of ocean dwellers and the glow indicates the level of the bacteria's well-being. When they come into contact with toxins, the light fades. Several firms have already commercialized the process, selling freeze-dried bacteria and special biosensory devices called luminometers for various tests where light is involved. In Asia, chemical tests are still used to check water quality, but luminometers have become standard in Germany for some tests, including water potability and waste-water treatment processes. Quinto wanted to see whether the method could work in the Philippines, where both academic and government resources are sparse, and where many households rely on unregulated sources of drinking water. Water-quality tests are certainly in demand, but only the private sector can afford to use luminometers. "There are many good tests available but the limiting factor is always cost and the expertise you need," says Wim van der Hoek, a Netherlands-based consultant for the International Water Management Institute, a not-for-profit research organization which focuses on the water needs of developing countries. The next thing Quinto did was take a trip to an open-air market near his student quarters, where he bought a variety of fish to take to the lab. It didn't take him long to find that almost all tropical fish and crustaceans have luminous bacteria in their intestinal tracts. They are different species of bacteria to those found in cold-water fish, but with the same qualities. "To be able to isolate the bacteria from a Philippine environment was a big advantage," Quinto says. Next, he needed to find a way to trap the bacteria in large enough quantities for visual tests, eliminating the need for the luminometer, which works like a microscope, magnifying the view of the bacteria. Quinto soaked discs of filter paper, made with the office hole-puncher, in the bacterial mixture-and there it was: A cheap test using easily available local resources which mimics the more expensive commercial test. Quinto says his version of the test picks up fairly small concentrations of harmful toxicants, like mercury, arsenic and lead, but doesn't identify the compounds. Quinto's paper discs, whose light fades faster in the presence of toxins, are as sensitive as a luminometer, though it's easier for the luminometer to tell the degree to which the bacteria's light dims. In both types of test, the bacteria's reaction to a water sample gives a good indication of how that water would go down with humans. As Quinto says, "90% of chemicals that would harm the bacteria would harm people as well." The test could provide a cheaper option for testing tap or well water for the presence of heavy metals, or the pollution of rivers or lakes near industrial plants. Many households in the Philippines rely on informally drilled wells and such water often goes untested. The Philippine Department of Health uses bottle kits for nonexperts to test for contamination by the E. coli bacteria, but says that few heavy-metals tests are used regularly because of the cost. LOW-TECH SOLUTION For Quinto, it is deeply satisfying that he didn't have to rely on lab products from the West for his method. "There are so many bio-resources that can be tapped here in the Philippines," he says. He talks about the local reluctance to use homegrown methods, though they're often cheaper. His adviser, Fortunato Sevilla agrees: "Maybe it's the colonial experience we have. We'd rather have something foreign than something locally made." Quinto has high hopes for other uses for his bacteria cultures, for example, to test urine for, say, mercury poisoning. Or for use by any company that needs to test its products for antibacterial activity. Meanwhile, a certain group of luminous bacteria has become a problem as they have infested prawn farms and Quinto says that in a sort of role reversal, a plant extract that has been shown to harm the bacteria could be used as a natural pesticide. Quinto also wants to use the method to test indigenous plants for medical properties. Traditionally, it takes lots of petri dishes and long labour as well as vast quantities of samples to see whether a plant may have wonder-drug potential, but with the paper-disc test, only two or three leaves from each plant are necessary to give a quick indication of its powers. Bacteria exposed to garlic lose their glow, for example, indicating possible antibacterial properties. Whatever the future holds, one thing is sure: Quinto will always
be on the lookout for local solutions to local problems.
"Chance favours the prepared mind," he says. No ResultsPlease supply at least one search term. Advertise on feer.com and in FEER |
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