Scientist Ines forges ahead in her career<\/p>\n
Kunang Helmi-Picard, Contributor, Paris<\/p>\n
The International Women's Day on March 8 this year means more for
\nDr. Ines Atmosukarto since it's the day when the 32-year-old
\nscientist was awarded one of 15 Unesco-L'Oreal scientific
\nfellowships in Paris.<\/p>\n
Visibly excited, the very first Indonesian to have won an
\naward since the Unesco-L'Oreal Women in Science Program begun in
\n2000, was thrilled at the possibility of furthering her team's
\nresearch in microbiology with the US$20,OOO fellowship at an
\nuniversity of her own choice.<\/p>\n
Four days later at the official Unesco ceremony for the five
\nmajor awards, presided by the 1974 French Nobel prize winner for
\nmedicine, Professor Christian de Duve, Ines was elegantly dressed
\nin a pale green silk sarong and white kebaya (traditional
\nblouse).<\/p>\n
Every year, five major Awards for Scientific Research are
\ngiven to mature women scientists from five areas: Africa, Arab
\nStates, Asia & the Pacific, Europe-North America and Latin
\nAmerica & the Caribbean.<\/p>\n
In addition, 15 fellowships are awarded to young women
\nscientists starting their professional careers. Some 91 women
\nscientists from 45 countries across the world have already been
\nrecognized for excellence in research, or received encouragement
\nto pursue their careers.<\/p>\n
As Japanese Koichiro Matsuura, director general of Unesco
\ndeclared: \"The network constituted by these women of science is
\ncalled on to play an important role wherever the future of
\nscience is at stake.\"<\/p>\n
A Unesco team carries out discreet inquiries each year in 190
\ncountries as to which young women scientists are suitable for the
\nfellowships and which mature woman scientist is worthy of a major
\naward. Then, an established scientific jury presided by Professor
\nDe Duve in Paris makes the final choice.<\/p>\n
Ines -- whose childhood was spent in Algeria attending a
\nFrench elementary school and then secondary school in Indonesia
\n-- has a Rumanian mother who is a biochemist. Her mother is now
\noccupied looking after her grandchild while her eldest daughter
\nis busy undertaking research.<\/p>\n
Ines has visited Paris once before as the winner of a French
\ndictation competition. \"In 1985 when I won the competition, I
\nalso stayed at the very same hotel with this stunning view of the
\nEiffel Tower,\" she exclaimed.<\/p>\n
The young microbiologist graduated from senior high school in
\n1991 and immediately applied for a scholarship to Australia.
\nAfter intensive testing she was accepted by Adelaide University,
\nwhich she chose because their Cellular and Molecular Biology
\nprogram was the best in Australia. Here, Ines also earned her
\ndoctorate before returning to Indonesia to become a member of a
\nresearch team at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, more
\nspecifically the Research Center for Biotechnology based in
\nCibinong, West Java. Ines also met her Indonesian pilot husband
\nin Australia.<\/p>\n
The young scientist denies ever really having experienced any
\ndiscrimination because she was a woman while studying or
\nundertaking research.<\/p>\n
However, she did point out that only about 15 women were among
\nthe 100 chosen from Indonesia to win scholarships to Australia in
\n1992. Besides that, when she came back from Australia with her
\ndoctorate, many refused to acknowledge her ability until she was
\naccepted by a well-established scientific project in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Petite, yet full of energy, Ines describes her natural-product
\ndrug discovery project using a special group of microorganisms,
\nknown as endophytes, which colonize the living tissue of plants.
\nThese have the potential to provide new sources of antibiotic,
\nanticancer and antifungal drugs. She plans to collect a selection
\nof plants from Indonesian forests, which have already been used
\nin traditional medicine.<\/p>\n
\"Four months of my fellowship will be spent at the Department
\nof Plant Sciences at Montana State University, USA and in the
\neight remaining months, I will use the funds to further our team
\nproject on plant research back in Indonesia. Now we will be able
\nto travel within Indonesia into the forests themselves, instead
\nof only relying on Botanical Gardens such as Bogor.\"<\/p>\n
Her main project, together with her team of 12 fellow members,
\nis to extract molecular compounds from the endophyte cultures,
\nscreen them to see which ones show antimicrobial activity and
\ntest the most promising ones for their potential as new sources
\nof drugs.<\/p>\n
Ines thus hopes that if the hidden potential of Indonesian
\nplants for medicinal use can be demonstrated, there will be a
\nstrong argument to reduce deforestation in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
For the moment, an additional problem is that of refrigerating
\nthe samples adequately while being faced with an erratic
\nelectricity supply. Private sponsors have sprung up to help their
\nresearch and to solve the problem of maintaining this \"library of
\nplant samples and endophytes\" extracted from the plants. Ines
\nhopes for clues from the local population as to which plants to
\nseek out.<\/p>\n
The first venue for field-research will be the island of Riau
\nwhich harbors over 218 indigenous plants of great interest for
\nthe intensive research program. Gradually this program will cover
\nthe entire Indonesian archipelago. As the end product is of
\ncommercial value, industrial sponsors may be interested in
\nfurthering this research and Ines does hope that scientific
\ncooperation with other Southeast Asian countries, such as
\nSingapore, will also be feasible.<\/p>\n
Before returning home to Indonesia Ines is visiting her
\ngrandmother in Bucharest, Rumania whom she has not seen in 20
\nyears. She will begin her fellowship program in May and return to
\nCibinong to conclude the remaining eight months of her fellowship
\ntogether with her home research team.<\/p>\n
\"This is most exciting because medical results may improve the
\nstandard of rural health in Indonesia using natural material
\nfound in Indonesia itself,\" she said.<\/p>\n
With her bubbly personality and infectious enthusiasm, Ines
\nproves that combining a career in scientific research while being
\na dedicated wife and mother is not an insurmountable and dreary
\ntask.<\/p>",
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