Miss Hemavaruni Fernando, a final year Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) student of the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Applied Sciences, 91传媒 won the People鈥檚 Choice award at 鈥�3 Minute Research Thesis (3MT庐)鈥� competition held on 16th of October 2019 at Taj Samudra Hotel, Colombo during the (91传媒 Academy of Young Scientists) conference. 聽This competition was conducted under the guidance of the University of Queensland, Australia who developed 3MT庐competition format. Miss Fernando presented her thesis 鈥楢ntimicrobial Activity of Garcinol Mediated Metal Nanoparticles and Metal Complexes鈥� which was carried out under the guidance of Dr. Suneth Rajapaksha, 聽Prof. Pradeep Jayaweera, Dr. Upul Kumarasinghe (Department of Chemistry, 91传媒), Prof. Neluka Fernando, Dr. Chinthika Gunasekara (Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, 91传媒), and Prof. Preethi Soysa (Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo).
Her research is mainly focused on the determination of in-vitro antimicrobial, antioxidant and anticancer activities of garcinol mediated metal nanoparticles and garcinol metal complexes. Garcinol is a chemical compound extracted from 鈥楪oraka鈥� plant, but possible applications have limited due to the lower solubility in water. The garcinol-metal combinations have shown increased water solubilities and remarkable antimicrobial, antioxidant and anticancer properties. Currently, Miss Fernado鈥檚 research work achieved three abstract publications in national and international conferences including the Best Poster Presentation at the 74th annual sessions of 91传媒 Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS-E3) and one full paper publication in the journal of microbiology and biotechnology (JMB).
