BOXERS and singers aren?t the only Filipinos bringing honor and recognition for the country abroad.

Last March 4 at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, biochemist Lourdes J. Cruz, a professor at the University of the Philippines? Marine Science Institute, was one of five women scientists bestowed the prestigious 2010 L?Oreal-UNESCO Awards in the Life Sciences for her work with snail toxins and what they can reveal about our brain chemistry.

Snail toxins?

For laymen, it may not be in the same league as winning a world title at Madison Square Garden or appearing on Oprah, but in the global scientific community, it is a singular honor and a huge deal.

?For a dozen years, the L?Oréal-UNESCO Awards have recognized and promoted exceptional women who, by the excellence of their research, contribute to the advancement of science,? said Dr. Günter Blobel, president of the Life Sciences Jury of the award-giving body and himself a Nobel laureate for medicine. ?The L?Oréal-UNESCO Awards laureates are among the world?s best scientific talents and will serve as role models for the future of science.?

The achievement of Dr. Cruz, the first Filipina to receive the award, is doubly impressive because science continues to be a male-dominated field.

?In the sciences, like in other fields, there are certainly more men who are recognized,? says Cruz in a press interview. ?The L?Oreal-UNESCO Award was set up to give importance to the role of women and their contribution to science? If it?s a science award, then it has to be judged on the science. But there are still communities or societies in the Philippines where women are discouraged from going to school. What?s important is to give equal opportunity.?

Cruz herself was certainly never deterred from pursuing a career in science because of her gender.

She spent the first eight years of her life in Tanza, Cavite, the sixth of eight children. Her father was a chemist who worked primarily in the sugar industry, while her mother was a dentist, so laboratories were never an alien environment.

?I learned math and how to think from my father when I was in grade school,? she recalls.

The family moved to Manila, mainly to be closer to the schools. Even in high school, at the Immaculate Heart College, Cruz gravitated toward the sciences. By the time she was ready for college, it was easy to choose a major. An elder sister had also decided to become a chemist, so she became a chemistry major at the University of the Philippines.

After graduating in 1962, she worked for a time at the International Rice Research Institute, before leaving for the University of Iowa to pursue her master?s degree, and eventually a doctorate in biochemistry.

?In biochemistry, you?re applying chemistry principles in understanding living organisms,? she says. Her interest in this field was encouraged by mentors such as National Scientist Dr. Bienvenido Juliano, and Dr. Baldomero Olivera, who would become a close colleague.

After returning to the Philippines, Cruz began working at the Biochemistry department of the University of the Philippines.

Even then, local scientists labored under severe constraints: lack of funding, lack of equipment, lack of government and private sector support. It was a far cry from the West where the best scientific minds were able to do cutting-edge research with the full backing of government and corporate interests.

?We realized that the only way we could compete abroad was to think of something where we had the advantage,? she says. ?The only way was to work with Philippine materials.?

Enter Conus geographus.

Otherwise known as the deadly sea snail, Conus geographus is one of the more interesting creatures in the highly biodiverse waters of central Philippines. A fish-eater, Conus geographus paralyzes its prey by stinging it with a harpoon mounted on its proboscis, injecting it with a neurotoxin several times more potent than that of the feared sea snakes that also abound in the Philippines.

Luckily, snails are not aggressive so the incidence of people being stung is relatively low, but fatalities are not entirely unknown. Growing up to six inches in length, the Conus shell is prized by collectors, and most cases of snail poisoning occur among beachcombers who pick up the snails and get stung. A swimmer in Batangas recently stuck one in his trunks, and would have died if he hadn?t gotten to a hospital in time. One man in Australia died within two hours of getting stung.

?We just wanted to know, ?what is it that can kill people???, recalls Cruz. ?It turned out that the snail venom was much more interesting than we thought.?

So interesting, in fact, that Cruz?s research on Conus geographus, begun in the early 1970s, is still continuing to this day.

To begin with, she found that the snail venom was made up of literally hundreds of different compounds, each with distinct properties and effects. She also learned that there are more than 200 different species of snails in the Philippines alone.

In the beginning, Cruz and her research team would actually collect specimens themselves, going out with fishermen to look for the snails. Eventually, a steady supply of Conus geographus began to make its way to the laboratories of the UP Marine Science Institute, where lab rats conducted hundreds of experiments on lab mice.

Cruz and her team isolated at least three kinds of paralytic neurotoxins. They also found that each component compound in the toxin had a different effect on the laboratory mice. One had a sedative effect, and was promptly named ?Conantukin.? Another made them restless and was named ?Contulakin.? These playful Tagalog names are now an official part of the scientific literature.

They also found that one reason why the snail venom was much more potent than snake venom was the fact that it was composed of relatively fewer amino acids linked in a chain. Thus, it was absorbed faster in the victim?s system, paralyzing the muscles that controlled the heart and the lungs.

The question remained: what do to with all this data being gathered?

?Should we spend time working on an antidote when the incidence of bites is so rare?? recalls Cruz. Or is there a more profitable avenue to take?

As it turned out, studying the properties of the snail venom was only the beginning. Even more fascinating was what it revealed about neurotransmission in the human body ? the way signals from the brain travel through the nervous system to the muscles to control movement.

Among other things, Cruz?s research has enormous potential for the development of new drugs, including more powerful but safer painkillers.

It is this kind of discovery that excites the scientific mind, and kindles a kind of passion that non-scientists can only guess at.

?I used to sleep in the laboratory so I could finish my experiments,? confesses Cruz.

Of course, during this time she was also pursuing other things. Among other things, she has been a professor at the Department of Biochemistry of the UP College of Medicine and the Marine Science Institute, and a research professor at the University of Utah?s Department of Biology.

She is also president of the Center for BioMolecular Science Foundation, the Bataan Center for Innovative Science and Technology, and the Marine Environment and Resources Foundation.

In 2006, her work in the field of biochemistry earned her the distinction of being proclaimed as one of the country?s National Scientists.

One of science?s pitfalls is that it can be an ivory tower, encouraging an existence in the realm of pure knowledge, divorced from the day-to-day lives of the rest of society.

?I must admit that I?ve lived in a laboratory for a long time,? says Cruz. ?It was only when I retired some years ago that I started thinking: what have I really contributed to the country? ?

This bout of introspection led Cruz to found Rural LINC, an NGO that works with farmers, fishermen and Aetas in Morong, Bataan through adult education and livelihood programs.

?We want to apply science to help alleviate poverty,? she says. ?We should try to go out of our way to popularize science.? ?