2018 Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize Laureate Honoured For Revolutionising Fight Against Waterborne Diseases
In conjunction with World Water Day1 and the launch of the International Decade for Action: Water for Sustainable Development 2018 - 20282, Professor Rita R. Colwell was unveiled as the recipient of the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize 2018 today.
Professor Colwell's accomplishments and commitment to the pursuit of science and its application have been exceptional. Over her immensely rich and multi-faceted career which continues till today, she has benefited the lives of millions worldwide through her pioneering insights into microbial water quality surveillance and her tireless efforts in building upon these insights to transform the surveillance and control of cholera and other waterborne diseases.
Challenging Conventions and Revolutionising Scientific Approaches
With some 3 in 10 people worldwide, or 2.1 billion3, lacking access to safe water at home, providing access to safely managed water is critical. Contaminated drinking water alone is estimated to cause 502,000 diarrhoeal deaths each year, and roughly 10 per cent (361, 000) of all child deaths under 5 years of age. Poor sanitation and contaminated water are also linked to transmission of diseases such as cholera, dysentery, hepatitis A, and typhoid3.
Professor Colwell's discoveries and innovations have fundamentally changed the way the world thinks of water microbiology.
In the 1980s, when culture-based methods4 were widely accepted as the gold standard for determining if disease-causing bacteria were alive, Professor Colwell's laboratory discovered that bacteria can exist in a state in which they are alive and can cause harm even though they cannot be cultured. This phenomenon, termed as "viable but non-culturable" (VBNC), highlighted that the use of traditional culture-based methods to determine the safety of water was not adequate. This breakthrough discovery was met with scepticism from prominent scientists at that time, but has now been shown to exist in more than 50 species of bacteria5, including many pathogens.
Building upon her discovery of the VBNC phenomenon, Professor Colwell was an early and active proponent of the use of novel molecular methods for more accurate and comprehensive diagnostics of water pathogens. She is the key inventor of an approach that uses whole genome sequencing and specialised databases to identify different strains of bacteria, and determine their virulence and resistance to antibiotics. In recent years, Professor Colwell has been focusing her efforts on translating the use of this rapid diagnostic technology (the GENIUS system by CosmosID, Inc.) to a wide range of applications that encompass drinking, recreational, agricultural and recycled waters.
Another breakthrough discovery by Professor Colwell was her earlier work in the 1970s on Vibrio cholerae. Professor Colwell discovered that Vibrio cholerae, which was previously thought to be incapable of surviving more than a few hours outside the human host, occurs naturally in the aquatic environment associated with plankton. This discovery highlighted the critical link between the environment and the cholera disease. It led to her subsequent application of satellite imagery and modelling to predict cholera outbreaks, and the innovative use of affordable sari cloth filters to dramatically reduce drinking water contamination. In particular, the use of sari cloth filters successfully led to the rapid reduction of the incidence of cholera in Bangladesh by 48% in 65 villages of rural Bangladesh, and has also been applied in other cholera-endemic areas such as India and South America.
The model she developed has also been successively refined, such that outbreaks can now be predicted with a few months' lead time. This model can be further generalised to related waterborne diseases and applied in both developing and developed countries.
Beyond the study of cholera, this explanation of the critical linkage between changes in environmental conditions and disease was significant in leading to further research in the 1990s that showed that climate change could considerably affect the prevalence and spread of human diseases.
In this way, Professor Colwell has applied her scientific knowledge in the most practicable and effective manner to transform the surveillance and control of cholera and other waterborne diseases, and bring about maximum impact on human health for the community.
Shaping Policy for Global Impact
In addition to her seminal scientific contributions, Professor Colwell is also an influential scientific advisor and public administrator who has led and shaped policy and practice through the numerous advisory and leadership positions she held in the U.S. Government, non-profit organisations, as well as scientific advisory boards. Her work spans the globe, from Africa, Bangladesh, India, Singapore to Central and South America, where she has advised governments and communities in tackling cholera and other waterborne diseases. The knowledge she provided has been translated into better policies and improved water treatment in many parts of the world.
Professor Rita R. Colwell said, "I am truly honoured to be this year's recipient of the Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize, one of the most prestigious global water accolades, on this significant occasion, which takes place on World Water Day and in conjunction with the launch of the International Decade of Action "Water for Sustainable Development". I am confident the pioneering spirit and innovative mindset represented by the Water Prize will further encourage future generations of talents to realise our shared goal of providing access to safe water for all."
As the 8th Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize Laureate, Professor Rita R. Colwell will deliver the Singapore Water Lecture on 9 July 2018. She will also receive the Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize at the Lee Kuan Yew Prize Award Ceremony and Banquet on the same night. The award ceremony is one of the flagship programmes of the Singapore International Water Week, which will be held from 8 – 12 July 2018, co-located with the World Cities Summit and CleanEnviro Summit Singapore. The 8th Singapore International Water Week will feature a range of flagship programmes and platforms that bring together the global value chain of water to share the latest in business and technological innovations, as well as policy developments in water.
1World Water Day 2018
2United Nations General Assembly International Decade for Action: Water for Sustainable Development 2018 - 2028
3Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Report 2017, Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene, WHO and UNICEF
4A culture-based method is a method of determining the presence of live microorganisms in a sample by letting them grow and multiply in a medium under controlled laboratory conditions. It is one of the primary tools used to determine the presence and abundance of bacteria
5Some of these VBNC bacteria include Salmonella enterica and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which cause gastroenteritis and tuberculoisis respectively
Source: Singapore International Water Week