Lasallian bags first runner-up in Merck Young Scientist Award

A BS BIOCHEMISTRY GRADUATE OF DLSU WHO IS CURRENTLY DOING RESEARCH WITH THE UNIVERSITY’S CENTER FOR NATURAL SCIENCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH (CENSER) won first runner-up in Merck Young Scientist Award (MYSA), which recognizes researchers who have innovative scientific ideas that offer solutions for the country.

Mary Stephanie Carranza’s name was announced during a virtual ceremony last June 9. She is one of two DLSU representatives who made it to the Top 5 finalists of the competition. The other
finalist from DLSU is Prof. Rafael Espiritu, faculty member and research fellow of the Chemistry Department.

Carranza’s study titled “Stimulation of bone tissue regeneration by silk fibroin-sulfated glycosaminoglycan scaffolds” was developed with two other alumni– Jessie Salvador (BS ECE) and Ryan
Rebello (BS ME). Their team aimed to prove the potential of the Philippines’ natural products industry and its pivotal role in the bioprinting realm.

Amid the pandemic, their team is trying to build a make-shift 3D bioprinter, capable of printing polymers that can crosslink to produce durable and biocompatible scaffolds for tissue engineering applications.

Espiritu’s proposal is titled “Investigating the potential membrane repair mechanisms activated in cancer cells undergoing ferroptotic and pyroptotic cell death.” Ferroptosis and pyroptosis have been increasingly implicated as having dual roles in cancer, both as anti- and pro-tumorigenic, while plasma membrane repair is a common mechanism that works to delay cell death in these two conditions.

By studying how cancer cells repair their plasma membranes, researchers might be able to identify novel therapeutic target/s and ways to exploit these cell death mechanisms to efficiently and selectively destroy tumors.

Merck is the world’s oldest pharmaceutical company and chemical enterprise. It collaborates with the global scientific community, providing scientists and engineers with best -in-class lab materials, technologies and services.

Carranza’s prize includes a cash prize of PHP 50,000 and PHP 90,000 worth of Merck reagents/products. The Merck products will be for the benefit of the team’s project under the supervision of Dr. Maria Carmen Tan and Dr. Francisco Franco Jr. of the Chemistry Department, and Dr. Glenn Oyong of the Biology Department.