Dr. Lourdes Cruz with her collection of marine snail shells.

MANILA - A local scientist who helped discover a snail toxin a thousand times more powerful than morphine, was chosen as the first Filipino winner of the 2010 L'oréal-UNESCO "For Women In Science Awards."

Dr. Lourdes Jansuy Cruz, 67, a National Scientist based at the University of the Philippines- Diliman, was recognized for her role in discovering Conotoxins (or toxins from marine snails) during the 1970s to 80s.

Cruz was directly involved in isolating peptides (a chain of amino acids which are the building blocks of proteins) from the venom of Conus (cone) snails found in the Philippines.

One of these peptides was developed by U.S. biotechnology firm Cognetix Corp. (later bought by Elan Pharmaceuticals) to produce the non-addictive drug Prialt Ziconotodine (or primary alternative to morphine).

"It's very potent, and it does not have the side-effects of morphine [like drowsiness, light headedness, euphoria, dry mouth, and fatigue]," Cruz told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak in an interview.

"It inhibits the pain pathway leading up to the brain so it has to be administered somewhere along the spinal fluid and requires a special pumping mechanism. It's not like a drug you can pop into your mouth," she said.

Cruz is one of 5 winners of the award this year, chosen among nearly 1,000 nominees all over the world, selected by a jury led by Nobel Prize winner Prof. Gunter Blobel. The awards, launched in 1998, aim to encourage scientific research among women scientists.

Cruz will receive $100,000 (P4.6 million) in prize money and will be honored at an awards ceremony at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris in March next year. The prestigious award is given to one "exceptional" woman researcher per continent every year.

Passion for science

Cruz spoke to abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak at the L'oréal Philippines office in Ortigas last week, appearing bright-eyed and animated when she talked about her work and the "joy of doing science."

"Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to get into science. My first science course in college was really very interesting for me," she said, noting that her interest in chemistry was probably inspired by her family.

Her father, Ramon A. Cruz was a research director for the Philippine Sugar Institute and the Canlubang Sugar Estate; while her sister Teresita is also a chemist.

After graduating with a degree in Chemistry from U.P., Cruz worked as a research aide at the International Rice Research Institute in Ilocos Norte where she studied rice quality with National Scientist Dr. Bienvenido Juliana.

"We did many, many analyses. You know, like, why is 'malagkit' (sticky rice) sticky? Why are some rice [varieties] 'matigas' (hard)? And then the protein quality, protein content. It was interesting for a while and then I wanted to enter the academe because you have more freedom to study what you want," she said.

Though she had officially retired from the academe after decades of teaching, she stayed on to handle classes at the U.P. Marine Science Institute and is currently advising students on their scientific dissertations.

Cruz wants to work as long as she can, just like her father, who worked until he was in his 80s.

Snail toxins

From Left to Right: Conus geographus (deadly to humans), Conus magus (which yielded the peptide for Prialt), and Conus striatus (named for the striations on the shell). All these snails hunt other snails for food.

Cruz has written over 130 scientific papers on various topics including rice grains, amino acids and proteins, and prawns. She is also part of a team studying harmful algal blooms in the Philippines that involve paralytic shellfish poisoning or "red tide."

By far, however, her most famous discovery is the marine snail toxin that garnered numerous awards for Cruz and her partner on the project, Dr. Baldomero Olivera.

The study on snail toxins started in 1970, when Olivera - an avid shell-collector - learned from local farmers that some marine snails could kill people.

Predatory Conus snails use their venom to kill fish, worms, or other snails for food.

"We decided to find out: what are the components of the snail venom that can kill people? What molecules does it target in the body? Why is it detrimental to us?" Cruz said.

The scientists bought live animal specimens from fishermen and shell collectors in Cebu and Bohol at P10 to P200 each for their study.

The scientists thought they would be done with the research in 2 years, expecting that the snails would yield only one or two active components - just like snake venom.

"But it turns out that the [snail] venom contains many, many other components that affect nerves and muscles. So the study branched off and got extended until 1985 and onwards," she said.

"You see, there are 300 species [of Conus snails] in the Philippines and 700 [species worldwide]. Each species contains 100 to 200 different peptides. I mean, it will take more than a lifetime and many different scientists to study all of them," Cruz said.

To this day, research on Conotoxins are still ongoing, with collaborations among Cruz's graduate students and foreign universities.

Intellectual property problems

The snail toxin peptides have a variety of uses for humans. Since the toxins act on very specific components of nerves and muscles, Cruz said they can be used to study how the human brain, nerves, and muscles work.

Some of the toxins can be used to control the activity of nerves, so they can be used to develop drugs like Prialt. The painkiller had an $8.2 billion (P400.4 trillion) market cap gain in 2006.

Cruz and Olivera were not given royalties for this because they failed to get U.S. patents for many peptides they isolated and identified during the course of their 15-year research project on Conus snails.

"Olivera tried to write the company (Elan Pharmaceuticals), saying, 'You know, you should at least give [us something]. They didn't want to," Cruz said.

She explained that at the time, Philippine scientists "frowned upon" the use scientific discoveries for economic gain and the country did not have a working patenting system in the 1970s.

Even though the system was improved in recent years, Philippine patents may not be honored in other countries. Cruz also said maintaining U.S. patents are expensive, costing $10,000 each, and they only last for 20 years.

"We got patents for the first few peptides, but it was expensive! And even if we did patent it, the development [for a drug] would have taken 20 years and the patent would have been expired by then," Cruz said.

'Untapped wealth'

Mollusk-eating snails. From top left (clockwise): Conus aulicus, Conus marmorius, Conus textile, and Conus gloriamaris (or 'Glory of the Sea'). Conus gloriamaris is the most expensive snail variety, reportedly costing more than a Dutch masterpiece painting.

Atty. Adrian Cristobal Jr., Director General of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines, regrets the fact that the Philippines loses billions of dollars worth of potential income to foreign patenting and bio-piracy.

Bio-piracy happens when corporations "take advantage" of biological resources of developing countries for profit, without sharing the benefits to indigenous communities from the country of origin who have intellectual property rights over resources.

The Philippines is part of the world's biodiversity hotspots, boasting of 52,000 species of flora and fauna.

Though limited by facilities and chemicals used in research, Cruz sees the abundance of Philippine natural resources as a competitive advantage for the country's scientists.

Cruz said international scientists are becoming more conscious of problems like patents and bio-piracy, and are more careful of protecting natural resources and sharing the economic benefits with indigenous communities in areas where plant or animal species are found.

Rural incubator

One of Cruz's pet projects is the Rural Livelihood Incubator program launched in 2001 for a community of Aetas.

Her vision was to use science and technology as a tool to alleviate poverty among communities where scientists usually work.

Under the project, a team of scientists - from anthropologists to taxonomists - work with Aetas to develop the tribe's history, genealogy, area maps of their ancestral domains, and studies on the medicinal plants that Aetas have been using to cure diseases (like rattan that is used for diarrhea).

"These are untapped wealth. I think one of the tricks of conservation is to try to find uses for them. For example, wild trees like 'bugnay' (wild berry trees) and duhat (black plum) used to be chopped down for charcoal so they would die off. Now, they saw they could earn money from them," Cruz said.

They also teach Aetas skills like commercial bee-keeping and make indigenous people aware of their rights over natural resources in their area by translating the Indigenous People's Rights Act to the Aetas' dialect.

With efforts like these, scientists and the communities they work with hope to avoid the problems that Cruz and Olivares suffered in terms of missing out on money earned from their discoveries.

However, Cruz said she doesn't rue the trillions lost in royalties or profit-sharing because she said they had at least "opened the playing field" for the study of snail toxins and their social benefits.

At the very least, Cruz and her team are always given credit for pioneering research on Conotoxins.

"The fact that we have made what we think is a big contribution to science-- that is enough," she said. Report and photos by Kristine Servando, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.