UNAIR NEWS – As one of the nation’s leading universities, Universitas Airlangga students’ brilliant achievements are part of the university’s bright credentials. This time, Salma Firdaus, Medical Faculty (FK) student, successfully won the Third Prize in the science field of the Djarum Beasiswa Plus Writing Competition on Friday, September 23, 2022, in Ubud, Bali.

The Malang-origin student coined the idea in her essay, Cicadas wing nanostructured biomimicry technology as an innovative solution to control the transmission of pathogens from fomite to break the chain of transmission of infectious diseases. The idea was sparked by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which raised our awareness of the danger of dead-threatening microorganisms.

“With the advanced biomolecular technology, I proposed the idea because nowadays, technology and health grow into nanoscopic scale. In that regard, I focused on the idea that the Cicadas wings have a nanopillar structure that can kill microbes,” said Salma.

“From the basic idea, I came up with the idea that the nanostructures in the wings can be applied to the pathogen (fomite) contaminated things to keep the sterility and reduce the transfer of pathogens to break the chain of infectious diseases,” she added.

She further explained that the selection of the Djarum Beasiswa Plus Writing Competition was pretty complicated, from the regional to the national scale. Earlier, she was pessimistic about the total writing submission exceeding 100 works. However, she made it to the Big-5 Finalist and got to represent the Eastern part of Indonesia on the national scale.

“It’s my first-ever experience participating in an offline presentation stage in front of three judges with media, business, and academic professional backgrounds. The toughest part was to stay calm and confident with the proposed idea. Alhamdulillah, I won the regional stage and got 5 million for the prize,” Salma said.

“After that, I represent the region on the national stage in Ubud, Bali. The challenge was in the presentation stage, just like the regional one, but here, we had to present our ideas for 20 minutes and answer the questions for 40 minutes,” she said.

In the end, Salma suggested students, who want to make achievements keep practicing and never stop learning. Be brave to ask questions and opinions from others, especially the experienced ones.

Author: Rafli Noer Khairam

Editor: Binti Q. Masruroh