Once again, an UGM student achieves a success at international level. This time the achievement is presented by Ameilinda Monikawati, Faculty of Pharmacy, who won a gold medal and the best award in the International Invention and Innovation Exhibition (i-ENVEX) 2011 event. The competition this time was held in Kangar, Perlis, Malaysia, 8-10 April.
i-ENVEX is a routine annual activity undertaken by Universiti Malaysia Perlis. Coordinated by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) and the Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI), the competition aims to encourage the development of knowledge in science and technology field. Various universities from Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, and Saudi Arabia participated in the event.
UGM’s participation in this activity is the follow up to the Indonesian Young Researcher Selection (PPRI) 2010 event in the field of science, which was organized by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). In the competition this time, Indonesia sent student representatives who won PPRI 2010 from six universities, one of which is Ameilinda Monikawati.
In the i-ENVEX 2011, Ameilinda was awarded in the category of Biotechnology, Health, & Chemicals through her research entitled ‘Chemopreventive Activity of ciplukan Herbs (Physalis Angulata) on Breast Cancer: In Vitro and In Vivo Study’.
As reported earlier, Ameilinda and two colleagues from the Faculty of Pharmacy, Inna Amandari and Sofa Farida, in 2010 had developed a research on ciplukan plant. The final conclusion is that ciplukan has the potential to be developed as a chemoprevention agent of breast cancer through the apoptosis induction and prevent of cell proliferation. Ciplukan can also be used as co- chemotherapy agent with doxorubicin. The research that was developed by these three students managed to become the winner of Natural Sciences field in the 9th Young Researcher Indonesian Selections (PPRI), which eventually was able to deliver them to win the i-ENVEX in 2011.