Fulbright is one of the world's prestigious scholarships for education and research funding, both for students and teaching staff. Two Chemistry lecturers at the Untan Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences have successfully completed research funded by Fulbright in 2019. They are Nelly Wahyuni, PhD who completed her doctoral studies in France and Risa Nofiani who graduated with a doctoral degree from the University of Bristol, United Kingdom.

On May 3 2019, they presented their research results in the Fulbright Research Presentation on Chemistry activity. This presentation was attended by a number of MIPA chemistry undergraduate students, MIPA chemistry masters students, alumni, lecturers, high school/equivalent teachers and other practitioners such as veterinarians and others.

Mrs. Risa Noviani, PhD presented her research on Utilizing Bacterial Genomes for Exploration of Medicinal Compounds. He also said that before leaving for England, he had to undergo a number of vaccines as a condition for entering that country. This is proof that dangerous disease viruses such as polio and tuberculosis are still feared, even by developed countries like England, even though we rarely encounter these diseases nowadays.

In fact, based on a literature study conducted by Mrs. Risa Noviani, PhD, currently many disease-causing microbes are resistant to a number of antibiotics. According to WHO data, the death rate due to infectious diseases will be 10 million in 2050. Not because we do not have antibiotics, but because the microbes that cause infections are resistant to a number of antibiotics themselves.

Mrs. Risa Noviani also succeeded in isolating anti-microbials, namely polyketide compounds from the bacterium Streptomyces sp. which  can be obtained from various sources in West Kalimantan such as Mempawah mangrove mud, sediment and sponges.

A different story, Mrs. Nelly Wahyuni, PhD tries to anticipate future energy. He uses clay from Capkala which is modified with ZnCl for light emission which is the source of Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) or light emitters from organic materials. Organic materials commonly used as OLED sources include sumba, seaweed, turmeric and carrots.

Apart from being an alternative energy source for the future, clay also resists UV radiation from the sun. Mrs. Nelly Wahyuni, PhD invites us to dream, if Capkala clay is considered to be used as sunblock, West Kalimantan will have increased regional income. Because currently the price of Capkala clay for 1 ton is around IDR 300,000.