MANILA, Philippines — Eleven Filipino scientists and researchers, including two heads of research and development institutes of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), joined the prestigious list drawn up by the Asian Scientist magazine for this year’s edition of their Asian Scientist 100.
Among the Filipino scientists and researchers who joined the prestigious list is Dr. Raul Destura of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of University of the Philippines (UP) Manila, who headed a team of UP Manila researchers that developed an affordable rapid dengue diagnostic kit.
The Biotek-M Dengue Aqua Kit is now being manufactured by a spinoff health tech startup he now heads, the Marikina City-based Manila HealthTek, Inc., which has also developed the country’s first and only locally produced real time-polymerase chain reaction swab test for COVID.
The other Filipino honorees are Carlos Arcilla, the executive director of the DOST-Philippine Nuclear Research Institute that is leading the country’s push to harness nuclear power to bring down the country’s high power cost, and engineer Robert Dizon, the executive director of the DOST-Metals Industry Research and Development Center. The center developed the Hybrid Electric Road Train, an innovation on the bus rapid train technology, and the Hybrid Electric Train to provide locally developed and assembled train sets to help the Philippine National Railways install brand-new rolling stock to replace its vintage trains.
The honorees also include National Scientist Emil Javier; Alicia Aguinaldo of the University of Santo Tomas; Emma Sales of the University of Southern Mindanao; Cleotilde Hidalgo How of UP Manila; the late Alonzo Gabriel of UP Diliman; Raymond Tan and Susan Gallardo, both of the De La Salle University.
“Every year since 2017, Asian Scientist magazine compiles a list of Asia’s most outstanding researchers. Now on its fourth edition, the Asian Scientist 100 list celebrates the success of the region’s best and brightest, highlighting their achievements across a range of scientific disciplines,” the publication said.
“To be acknowledged in this list, the honoree must have received a national or international prize in the preceding year for his or her research. Alternatively, he or she must have made a significant scientific discovery or provided leadership in academia or industry,” it elaborated.
The 11 Filipino scientists and researchers were joined by their equally prominent and prestigious scientists in Asia, which also featured past Nobel Prize winners.
Among the other prominent members in the Asian Scientist 100 for 2020 are Akira Yoshino of the Asahi Kasei Corp., who was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for creating the world’s first commercially viable lithium-ion battery in 1985. Yoshino shared the prize with Prof. John Goodenough of the University of Texas and Prof. M. Stanley Whittingham of the State University of New York.
“Today, lithium-ion batteries are used in a wide range of modern technologies, from smartphones to electric cars,” the magazine said.
From Malaysia, the list had Shivaani Mariapun, who received the 2019 LÓreal-UNESCO Fellowship for Women in Science National Award for her research on mammographic density and breast cancer risk in Asian women to formulate effective screening strategies for early detection of the disease.
Another Nobel Prize winner in the list was Yang Chen-Ning of China’s Tsinghua University, who received the 2019 Qiu Shi Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to theoretical physics. Yang was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on parity non-conservation of weak interactions.
Another member of the 2020 list is 2020 IEEE Nikola Tesla Award recipient Akira Chiba of Japan’s Tokyo Institute of Technology for his contributions to the bearingless and reluctance motors for application in hybrid and pure electrical vehicles.
Qi Faren of China’s Beihang University, another honoree, is the chief designer of China’s spacecraft. He was awarded the 2019 Hall of Fame Award for his contributions to the progress of space science and technology in China.
Another honoree was Yasuhiko Arakawa of the University of Tokyo, who received the IEEE Jun-Ichi Nishizawa Medal 2019 for his contributions to the development and commercialization of quantum dot lasers.
Among the Singaporean honorees was Toh Kim Chuan of the National University of Singapore.
an awardee of the President’s Science Award 2019, for his fundamental contributions to the theory, algorithms and applications of convex optimizations.