Former Bermuda High School student Alisha Gabriel wasn't content to just graduate, she wanted to make a difference.

Miss Gabriel, now in her third year of studying Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, has become involved in research that could potentially save the lives of many of the world's poor.

She is helping by researching the concept of solar disinfected water, a technique which people can use to provide healthy drinking water from contaminated sources using nothing more than a clear bottle.

"It does seem really simple," said Miss Gabriel. At its simplest, water is poured into a clear glass or plastic container and left in direct sunlight for six hours.

Sunlight reacts with oxygen in the water, and the energized oxygen attacks disease-causing bacteria. As the water temperature rises, even more bacteria die.

The result is water which, while warm, has significantly fewer bacteria, which kill thousands if not millions of people every year.

"We're right now only testing with a few strains of bacteria, but it's very effective on them," said Miss Gabriel.

Solar disinfecting, or SOLDIS, has already been proven to help kill the bacteria that cause illnesses such as cholera, dysentery and polio.

"They could be a bigger cause of death then AIDS or cancer," Miss Gabriel said. "More than one billion people don't have reliable drinking water."

Right now, Miss Gabriel is doing her work in Ireland under acclaimed researcher Dr. Kevin McGuigan, trying to develop an inexpensive catalyst, which would hopefully allow the reactions to occur quicker and with less sunlight.

In the next few weeks, the research team will visit Spain for the next stage in the project, moving the experiment from simulated sunlight to the real thing.

"There's plenty of sunlight there. Not quite as much in Ireland," she said. "We couldn't try the experiment in large scale here."

If the experiments go well, the next stage would be finding a grant to provide the researchers with financing.

While the research may not be the most glamorous, that isn't what matters to Miss Gabriel.

"I was interested in it because it seemed like it was actually helping someone in need," she said.