The prize that Putri has won consists of a check for 2,500 euros that she can spend on a doctoral course or research conference in her field. The three-year PhD funding that Putri would have received will be passed onto the number two on the list. Putri has already managed to find an external source of finance and will receive funding for four years from the LPDPIndonesia Endowment Fund for Education.
In her research proposal "Photo-triggered cargo release from engineered protein cages," Putri describes an innovative method by which she wants to use proteins as a sort of 'cage' for medicines. One of the advantages is that you can access the cages by means of, among other things, light. If the method succeeds, the rate of drug release at certain sites in the body of a patient can be controlled better. This is important in applications of smart designed medicines for targeted drug delivery,' where the drugs are released only in that part of the body where light occurs. In this way, Putri hopes to reduce the side effects of medication to a minimum.
