UNAIR NEWS - Another proud achievement came from students majoring in Nanotechnology Engineering at Universitas Airlangga. The achievement was in third place in the National Essay Competition held by the Public Health Student Association, Tadulako University, on Saturday (17/12/2022).

The achievement results from innovation work from a team of Dino Pati Putra, Azizah Mirza Kautsari, and Dewi Sintawati T. S with research supervisor Tahta Amrillah SSi MSc PhD.

There are two rounds of the competition. First, the preliminary round is the initial round to collect essays, which the committee assesses. Then, after passing the preliminary round, which left ten teams, the next round was to make a presentation held offline directly to Tadulako University.

"We raised a research entitled Advanced Materials Carboxymethyl Chitosan Nanoparticles Functionalized as Nanocarriers in Oral Drug Delivery System in Colorectal Cancer Treatment," explained Dino, the team leader.

Departing from UNAIR's focus on health and nanotechnology engineering students' understanding of nanomaterials in the mechanism of drugs, the issue became a health topic as a basis for making essays.

"The idea we raised is related to how a drug from chemotherapy can be encapsulated or wrapped in such a way that this drug preparation prevents side effects on other organs so that it triggers us to give an idea in the form of using nanotechnology in functionalized chitosan material used for chemotherapy drugs for colon cancer," explained Dino.

The inaugural competition also challenged the team's preparation for the process from the beginning of registration to the final announcement. Dino also explained the major challenges and obstacles, especially in communication preparation.

"Each of us has our own busy schedules, so it can be considered a lack of readiness. Especially with the live presentation round, lack of preparation, and the first time faced with offline presentations," he explained. He is also grateful for the achievements because the efforts and teams undertaken so far have borne sweet fruit.

He hopes that winning the competition will be a big academic and mental boost.

"We hope that in the future we can do better, improve, and prepare more thoroughly," said Dino. (*)

Author: Satriyani Dewi Astuti

Editor: Binti Q. Masruroh

Source: unair.ac.id/usung-innovation-medicine-prevent-cancer-intestinal-large-unair-student-sabet-3-winner-essay-competition-in-tadulako-university