Prof. Lourdes Jansuy Cruz,  the first Filipina and Asean to win the 2010 L’Oreal-Unesco For Women in Science Award, was recently awarded in Paris for her efforts in discovering Conotoxins from marine snails used as alternative to morphine.

A biochemist at the Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines, Dr. Cruz successfully worked on isolating peptides (a chain of amino acids which are the building blocks of proteins) from the venom of Conus snails. One of these peptides was developed by a US biotechnology firm and later bought by a pharmaceutical company to produce the non-addictive drug Prialt Ziconotodine, a primary alternative to morphine.