Chemist Corazon Ericka Mae Itang got the surprise wedding proposal of her dreams from a lab sample care of her chemist boyfriend, whose declaration of undying love had netizens searching for peptides and amino acids on Google.
In a viral post on Facebook, Itang shared how her now fiancé, Jacob Noel Inguito, concocted the wedding proposal that was seven months in the making. The couple both graduated magna cum laude and call each other "lablab".
Itang said that on July 21, her labmate gave her a peptide sample to analyze, a run-of-the-mill request at work. Peptides are shorter chains of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, and is represented by one-letter abbreviations, she told reportr.
Itang failed to identify the sequence match in all known databases. Not giving up, she exhausted all efforts and ran it through another test, (a "de novo sequencing" for those who are curious to know) and the question popped.
The sample read "MARRYME". How?
This sequence did not naturally occur. Inguito contacted U.S.-based company Thermo Fisher Scientific to create this especially for the chemist couple for free. It contains:
M - methionine
A- alanine
R - arginine
R - arginine
Y - tyrosine
M - methionine
E - glutamic acid
When Itang saw the result, she immediately contacted her "Lablab." She found out that Inguito started talking with the U.S.-based laboratory as early as January. It shipped the sample in March in an insulated box, careful to store it at least -20 degrees Celsius for its transpacific travel.
"So after doing the analysis, I messaged him and said, of course I'll marry you. Pero nasaan ang singsing?" she asked.
Consistent with the nerdy proposal, they were then "engaged with accountabilities" at that point (ring to follow.)
The day after, which happened to be their 147th monthsary (that's 12 years and three months), Itang met with her best friend for a quiet dinner. No one else was in the restaurant, she said. While her friend excused herself, Inguito surprised her with a ring. It's a yes, she said.
"I was initially surprised na nag-viral ang post kasi akala ko masyadong technical pero maybe relatable sa mga tao 'yung effort ni Jacob," she said.
The couple plans to have a long engagement to prioritize their careers. The two licensed chemists, who grauduated in UP Diliman as magna cum laude in 2014, will go back to school: Inguito to UP Diliman to take his masters, Itang to Germany to pursue her PhD in Biochemistry. She will leave in September, she said.
"So I guess, we just really wanted to seal the deal before I leave the country," she said.
Netizens can't help but gush and be in awe of the unique proposal.
"Pag di ganito proposal mo in the future wag nalang HAHHAAHAHAHA," a netizen said, tagging her special someone.
"ibang level na to hahahaha"
"Kung sakin to ginawa diko maiintindihan HAHAHAHA"
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