Scientist Ines forges ahead in her career

Scientist Ines forges ahead in her career

Kunang Helmi-Picard, Contributor, Paris

The International Women's Day on March 8 this year means more for
Dr. Ines Atmosukarto since it's the day when the 32-year-old
scientist was awarded one of 15 Unesco-L'Oreal scientific
fellowships in Paris.

Visibly excited, the very first Indonesian to have won an
award since the Unesco-L'Oreal Women in Science Program begun in
2000, was thrilled at the possibility of furthering her team's
research in microbiology with the US$20,OOO fellowship at an
university of her own choice.

Four days later at the official Unesco ceremony for the five
major awards, presided by the 1974 French Nobel prize winner for
medicine, Professor Christian de Duve, Ines was elegantly dressed
in a pale green silk sarong and white kebaya (traditional
blouse).

Every year, five major Awards for Scientific Research are
given to mature women scientists from five areas: Africa, Arab
States, Asia & the Pacific, Europe-North America and Latin
America & the Caribbean.

In addition, 15 fellowships are awarded to young women
scientists starting their professional careers. Some 91 women
scientists from 45 countries across the world have already been
recognized for excellence in research, or received encouragement
to pursue their careers.

As Japanese Koichiro Matsuura, director general of Unesco
declared: "The network constituted by these women of science is
called on to play an important role wherever the future of
science is at stake."

A Unesco team carries out discreet inquiries each year in 190
countries as to which young women scientists are suitable for the
fellowships and which mature woman scientist is worthy of a major
award. Then, an established scientific jury presided by Professor
De Duve in Paris makes the final choice.

Ines -- whose childhood was spent in Algeria attending a
French elementary school and then secondary school in Indonesia
-- has a Rumanian mother who is a biochemist. Her mother is now
occupied looking after her grandchild while her eldest daughter
is busy undertaking research.

Ines has visited Paris once before as the winner of a French
dictation competition. "In 1985 when I won the competition, I
also stayed at the very same hotel with this stunning view of the
Eiffel Tower," she exclaimed.

The young microbiologist graduated from senior high school in
1991 and immediately applied for a scholarship to Australia.
After intensive testing she was accepted by Adelaide University,
which she chose because their Cellular and Molecular Biology
program was the best in Australia. Here, Ines also earned her
doctorate before returning to Indonesia to become a member of a
research team at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, more
specifically the Research Center for Biotechnology based in
Cibinong, West Java. Ines also met her Indonesian pilot husband
in Australia.

The young scientist denies ever really having experienced any
discrimination because she was a woman while studying or
undertaking research.

However, she did point out that only about 15 women were among
the 100 chosen from Indonesia to win scholarships to Australia in
1992. Besides that, when she came back from Australia with her
doctorate, many refused to acknowledge her ability until she was
accepted by a well-established scientific project in Indonesia.

Petite, yet full of energy, Ines describes her natural-product
drug discovery project using a special group of microorganisms,
known as endophytes, which colonize the living tissue of plants.
These have the potential to provide new sources of antibiotic,
anticancer and antifungal drugs. She plans to collect a selection
of plants from Indonesian forests, which have already been used
in traditional medicine.

"Four months of my fellowship will be spent at the Department
of Plant Sciences at Montana State University, USA and in the
eight remaining months, I will use the funds to further our team
project on plant research back in Indonesia. Now we will be able
to travel within Indonesia into the forests themselves, instead
of only relying on Botanical Gardens such as Bogor."

Her main project, together with her team of 12 fellow members,
is to extract molecular compounds from the endophyte cultures,
screen them to see which ones show antimicrobial activity and
test the most promising ones for their potential as new sources
of drugs.

Ines thus hopes that if the hidden potential of Indonesian
plants for medicinal use can be demonstrated, there will be a
strong argument to reduce deforestation in Indonesia.

For the moment, an additional problem is that of refrigerating
the samples adequately while being faced with an erratic
electricity supply. Private sponsors have sprung up to help their
research and to solve the problem of maintaining this "library of
plant samples and endophytes" extracted from the plants. Ines
hopes for clues from the local population as to which plants to
seek out.

The first venue for field-research will be the island of Riau
which harbors over 218 indigenous plants of great interest for
the intensive research program. Gradually this program will cover
the entire Indonesian archipelago. As the end product is of
commercial value, industrial sponsors may be interested in
furthering this research and Ines does hope that scientific
cooperation with other Southeast Asian countries, such as
Singapore, will also be feasible.

Before returning home to Indonesia Ines is visiting her
grandmother in Bucharest, Rumania whom she has not seen in 20
years. She will begin her fellowship program in May and return to
Cibinong to conclude the remaining eight months of her fellowship
together with her home research team.

"This is most exciting because medical results may improve the
standard of rural health in Indonesia using natural material
found in Indonesia itself," she said.

With her bubbly personality and infectious enthusiasm, Ines
proves that combining a career in scientific research while being
a dedicated wife and mother is not an insurmountable and dreary
task.