IPB Students Become Champion Through Innovation of Cream from Shells
Two students of the Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) echoing the alma mater again. They are students from the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (FMIPA), namely Anbar Thohari and Rebecca Tiara Eka Putri. Both managed to snatch the third champion in the ASEAN Geosmart Competition 2018. The competition was held on 14-15 February 2018 at the University of Education Indonesia.
"The theme of this race is Optimizing Maritime Resource as an ASEAN Regional Development Axis. According to the theme, we use shell legs to be made into wound dressing cream," explained Rebecca.
The steps passed by Anbar and Rebecca were not easy, because they have to go through some selections starting from the selection of 100 abstract. From the 100 abstracts, the further selection was the collection of full paper, until finally determined 12 teams that must deliver the presentation on the competition.
"The title of our work is Musscream: Nano Collagen Innovation from Byssus Green Shells as a Wound Dressing Cream in an Effort to Utilize Indonesia's Maritime Resource. The idea is that we prepare it from the beginning of the seventh semester, around September 2017," Rebecca continued.
Rebecca explained that the innovated Musscream is derived from byssus or shell legs obtained in Muara Angke. Byssus or shell legs were extracted with several treatments such as mixing of a basic solution (NaOH), an acid solution with citric acid and diluted with aquadest. Furthermore, some of the treatment produced pure collagen which will be characterized by FTIR (Fourier Transform Infra Red), an instrument to determine functional group of extract compound.
"The steps are very long. After being characterized using FTIR, creams were produced in the form of nanoparticles to be easily absorbed in the wound, and then we conducted in vivo testing in mice," Rebecca added.
Through this idea, Anbar and Rebecca always hope to bring the good name of IPB in terms of innovating.
"In every competition, we always carry IPB flag as a love sign to our campus. In addition, we expect that our cream can be beneficial to the community," Rebecca concluded. (TK)
