Jamaican beach goers have, for the past decade, been left frustrated and at times downright disgusted by the abundance of thick, unsightly, brown, smelly Sargassum that wash up on the nation’s beaches each year.

The algae blooms or seaweed as it is popularly called has potential dire consequences as it poses a significant threat to both the local tourism and fisheries industries. Across the Caribbean region it is costing significant sums to clean-up the nuisance almost on an annual basis since the algae first showed up in large quantities in 2011. It cost an estimated US$210 million to clean-up across the region in 2018, according to the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism.

Amidst the frustrations there is one scientist whose research on the seaweed is aimed at both saving lives and creating a cleaner, more pleasant environment.

Meet Dr Winklet Gallimore, senior lecturer in the Department of Chemistry at the University of the West Indies, Mona. She moved from St Ann where she grew up to attend sixth form at Immaculate Conception High School at the insistence of a teacher she described as “charismatic”.

She became interested in things scientific from she was a child and would be thrilled by the way liquids react when they are mixed. Gallimore would run ‘experiments’ using things commonly found in the home, like vinegar. She liked to watch the bubbles that formed after mixing liquids.

“When I was in maybe fourth form, I would be at home, you know there’s vinegar, mixing things up, and be like ‘wow, this is interesting. I think that was where some of that interest in science came about. And of course, just seeing the beauty of nature,” Gallimore shared.

At Immaculate, Gallimore became even more interested in the sciences. She described being fascinated with the idea that nature produced these chemicals and developed a deep interest in discovering the purposes of the different compounds and how we can use them.

Gallimore understands the importance of investigating the Sargassum species and assessing its potential uses. She is well aware that algal species have many potential uses including providing alginates for the food industry as well as providing a cure/treatment for serious diseases.

With this in mind she has been undertaking scientific investigations into marine plant species, including algal species like Sargassum. Gallimore is working in tandem with the UWI, local research establishments and international collaborators.

To date, the research has provided crucial data on the type and composition of the main Sargassum species that wash up in the Caribbean each year – the S natans and S fluitans. It has been found that there is no real potential to use these as a feedstock and the low alginate content makes it unsuitable for the food industry.

Gallimore concedes that: “Sometimes you put in the work and get nothing out of it but that’s just part of the scientific process of learning and growing and making modifications as you go along”.

Perhaps her most important work right now is the research she has undertaken on the Jamaican brown alga Stypopodium zonale. So far, a cytotoxic compound exhibiting moderate activity against breast cancer cell lines in vitro has been isolated in small amounts.

Gallimore was quick to point out that this compound is still at the initial evaluation stage. However, she said that it was observed that it kills certain cancer cells. Going forward, she will observe whether it kills normal cells as well.

“If it’s killing cancer cells and normal cells at the same rate and there’s no distinction, therein lies a problem,” she stated.

As a scientist, Gallimore lives with the fact that research fails sometimes “and one has to be open to that concept that things may not go the way you envisioned them”.