Simple UST invention to test water purity takes Asia by storm

WATER is essential to life, yet its safety is a crucial problem in this country where water pollution is uncontrollable. Irresponsible industries spewing waste into rivers, wanton disposal of solid waste, and the government’s failure to enforce anti-pollution laws are only some of the perennial contributors to a worsening water pollution.

Although there are expensive water safety tests such as the coliform test and the antigen-antibody tests, they are not accessible to the majority, but instead available to specialized laboratories.

However, College of Science professor Edward Quinto thinks otherwise. Quinto has developed a cheap but effective method for detecting water toxicity with the use of paper and bacteria.

But these are no ordinary bacteria. In fact, these “glowing” bacteria were the reason why Quinto won the gold medal in the second annual Young Inventors’ Award sponsored by the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) and Hewlett-Packard (HP) Asia-Pacific.

Quinto’s research utilized the Photobacterium leiognathi, which were harvested from the gut of saltwater animals commonly found in the local market such as squid, fish, and crabs.

These bacteria emit a light of their own, that is why it is called bioluminescent bacteria. When these microorganisms come into contact with toxic chemicals, the brightness of the light they emit is reduced or eliminated.

Quinto previously worked with Dr. Fortunato Sevilla III, director of the UST Office for Research and Development, on a study titled “Luminous Bacteria for Measuring Water Toxicity” in 1997 which swept all the awards in the annual poster exhibit competition sponsored by the Philippine Council for Health, Research, and Development (PCHRD). Other Thomasians followed suit as succeeding researches on luminous bacteria won awards in prestigious scientific competitions.

How it works

Quinto’s research on luminous bacteria started after he came home from his postgraduate studies in Germany in September 1993.

He had learned that European countries were already using luminous bacteria to test water toxicity, and he sought to find a local equivalent and how to isolate it.

Quinto said that normally, a liquid suspension of the bacteria is prepared, and the liquid sample is directly dropped into test tubes and have to be repeatedly shaken to find the light intensity.

After his collaboration with Dr. Sevilla III and a few years of research years later, he stumbled upon using filter paper to carry the bacteria. So he used a paper puncher to make little paper discs, dipped them into a microbial broth of the luminous bacteria, then proceeded to test it on water samples.

In the dark, he found out that waters with toxic chemicals yielded a sharp drop in the brightness of the bacteria’s blue-green light within 30 minutes. But in clean water, the light stayed bright up to 24 hours.

Quinto’s latest research involved testing certain plant extracts with these bacteria to find out if they contain antibacterial properties. Any reduction in the bacteria’s light intensity indicates that the plant can be used to kill Vibrio bacteria, which is harmful to prawn and saltwater fish culture farms.

He also said that these bacteria, also called living sensors or biosensors, can be used in the genetics class laboratory to study catabolite repression, the process of turning off the luminescent gene in these bacteria.

Winning path

Indeed, for Quinto, “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

Actually, the idea of using paper discs only occurred to Quinto after he accidentally spilled some of the bacterial culture into a cotton while shaking the container. When the cotton glowed for some time, he thought of using paper as a possible medium. And the rest was history.

Quinto’s odyssey into the Young Inventors Awards started after people at the Research Center for the Natural Sciences (RCNS) informed him about the competition. And so, armed with pure faith and perhaps, a bit of luck, he emailed his research paper to the Far Eastern Economic Review website.

Some days after, Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) Associate editor Helen Przygodzki called him and commended his work. She said he qualified as a finalist and they would send a reporter to interview him.

This was how he met Sofia McFarland, the reporter who grilled him rigorously about his research. The interview coincided with the Natural Products Convention then held at UST, where Quinto presented his paper on the luminous bacteria.

Later, FEER revealed that Quinto was among the 14 finalists in its Dec. 20 issue. Researches from the various areas of scientific study from different universities in the Asia-Pacific Region were grouped into three broad categories – water, medicine, and engineering. Quinto’s work was the only finalist from the Philippines.

Then on the morning of Jan. 10, as the Varsitarian was interviewing Quinto at the Department of Biological Sciences faculty room, he received a congratulatory phone call for winning first place in the awards. That same day, the results of the competition were posted on the FEER’s online magazine and got printed in the magazine on its issue dated Jan. 17.

Quinto thinks that the practicality of his research was his winning ticket in the competition.

Compared with other costly researches, which could only be accessible to a select number of individuals, especially in developed countries, Quinto’s method of testing water toxicity costs less, which would benefit more people.

After years of hard work, Quinto’s success further validates the fact that UST’s quality of research is at par with other international universities.

Indeed, his research on these bacteria have already been published in numerous local and international scientific publications of such organizations like the Philippine Society for Microbiology, the Asian Association for Biology Education, and the International Scientific Institute (ISI), a very exclusive global journal, which serves as a benchmark of a university’s research efforts in the international scientific community.

Even before he received this award, commercialization was not far behind, as a Singaporean firm had expressed interest in his invention. It was fortunate too that Quinto had already patented his discovery with the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

Quinto says that the award further spurs his desire to improve his research, and find out more applications for the luminous microbes, such as testing for biological oxygen demand (BOD), or the oxygen content of water.

The award also recognized UST’s research efforts as a premier research institution not only in the Philippines, but in Asia as well.

Quinto hopes that this will further encourage students and graduate researchers to do their best in research and give them impetus to join the competition next year.

Among the 14 finalists, UST was the sole Philippine university. The previous year’s winner was from Monash University, Australia, whose study on preserving living tissue at room temperature garnered the top award.