Prof. Lourdes Cruz portrayed in French daily Le Monde

02/01/2010

7 people like
Send
Print

French daily Le Monde issues a very interesting portrait on Prof. Lourdes Cruz, 2010 Laureate for Aisa/Pacific.
The special reporter, Annick Cojean, has spent several days with Prof. Cruz in the Philippines where she got to follow the Laureate in her daily activities and better understand what drives this incredible women in her life.

Prof. Cruz has actually led fascinating research in marine toxinology and is a recognized specialist of cone snails. Cone snails live mostly in shallow water in tropical oceans around the world and are prized for the beautifully colorful and diverse patterns on their shells. But they are poisonous and dangerous for humans. They contain different conotoxins, which are peptides that act on nerves and muscles.

Professor Cruz has been a pioneer in isolating and characterizing the first cone snails peptides. Her research led to the development of conotoxins worldwide as invaluable tools for medical research on the nervous system. Thanks to Lourdes Cruz, today scientists use conotoxins as biochemical probes to investigate the activity of the human brain.

In this article, the journalist describes in details how Lourdes Cruz organized her life around these little snails and all the hopes that they represent for medical cure. Lourdes Cruz is also quite concerned about the Aytas community, an indigenous people in her country, and intends to use her award ($100,000) to buy a field in their region where she will set a laboratory in order to value their tremendous knowledge in traditional medicine and thus preserve biodiversity in her country.

To read this article : http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2010/01/02/lourdes-cruz-la-dame-et-son-tueur-fourbe_1286735_3244.html