Earlier this month, this 10th standard student from Anantpur's St Augustine's English Medium High School brought laurels to India by earning international acclaim and a multitude of awards at the 50th anniversary of the Intel fair at Philadelphia for her biochemistry project. This is the first time India participated in the fair.
Madhurima's awards include a first prize from Worldwide Young Researchers for the Environment, which wins her an all-expense-paid trip to Hanover, Germany, to participate in the Worldwide Fair in Environmental Sciences in October 2000, a third prize from Intel fetching her a cash award of $1,000, and three honourable mentions and recognition certificates from the Entomological Society of America.
Back home, however, the bouquets are still pouring in. While her school acknowledged her feat immediately by giving her a cash award of Rs 10,000, Intel endorsed it with a grand felicitation ceremony at Hyderabad last Wednesday. The state government too, is contemplating a grand award.
Madhurima's project "Development of Biopesticides Through Chemical Technology" deals mainly with the development of pesticides utilising the anti-feedant and insecticidal properties of the seeds of annona squamosa or custard apple. The idea struck Madhurima when she noticed, over a period of time, that grazing cattle always avoided custard apple saplings. She found out that extracts from the seeds had been traditionally used in the villages for killing lice and the treatment of dandruff. These observations, followed by some extensive research in her school and available journals and a little help from local experts, led to the finding that the plant had anti-feedant and insecticidal properties which were very useful in protecting plants and crops from persistent organic pollutants and other crop irritants as well as in preserving foodgrains.
She then undertook the project on a slightly larger scale and developed the pesticide by using powdered custard apple seeds and tested it on various crops and plants. The results have now been endorsed by the world. Says Madhurima: The need for developing environmentally-safe biopesticides towards protection of crops and post-harvest produce is well recognised. The recent suicides of farmers in my state due to crop failures caused by insects and pests spurred me to explore the possibility of developing such a pesticide from naturally-occurring agricultural wastes.
The Intel isef is the world's largest pre-college science competition and represents all life-sciences in 15 different categories. This year, the fair attracted 1,179 students from 47 countries whose projects were judged by 912 judges, many of whom were Nobel laureates. This is the first time that Asia-Pacific countries were invited to the isef. The countries making a debut included, apart from India, Australia, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
The privilege of participating in the isef doesn't come easy. Every year, more than a million students - ninth to 12th-graders - compete in about 500 isef-affiliated fairs held throughout the world. The winners of these fairs are subsequently taken to the American fair. In India, isef was introduced last year through Intel's education effort, Project Vidya. Says project coordinator Debjani Ghosh: We brought isef to India as we thought there was tremendous potential and science talent amongst students in this country which could be showcased and accepted in any part of the world. Madhurima did, indeed, prove her right.
The Indian challenge at the fair was formidable. Apart from Madhurima, the country was also represented by 14-year-old Gedipudi Prashanth Kumar from Tirupati, also in Andhra Pradesh, who had the distinction of developing batteries from banana skin. There were also Vyas Venkatraman and Gaurav Bahl from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, who developed a new 3-D designing software, called Red Shift II. In the first year itself, India made quite an impression at the isef.
Life after isef has changed substantially for the teenager -the second among three sisters - whose inspiration has always been her engineer-businessman father and science-educated mother. There are several offers from the corporate sector for sponsoring and endorsing her project and research within and outside her state. But the aspiring young scientist wants to continue her studies and conduct further research on her findings. I want to take this project forward to the realm of genetic engineering and also conduct DNA research on the seeds to develop a foolproof and effective biopesticide, says Madhurima. With her determination, she just might.
