MANILA, Philippines — The University of the Philippines (UP) and De La Salle University (DLSU) recently unveiled new state-of-the-art facilities that could expand research on medicines and illnesses including cancer.
A biobank facility, which can be used for high-level research on cancer cure, was unveiled last month at the Philippine General Hospital at UP Manila.
The project, funded by the Philippine-California Advanced Research Institutes (PCARI) of the Commission on Higher Education, will enable collecting samples of biological specimens to aid researchers in understanding diseases and help in the development of drugs.
UP professor and project leader Michael Velarde said the new biobank would house data on cancer type, blood analysis, pathologic data and other relevant patient information without compromising confidentiality.
For its initial cycle, the project will focus on endometrial, breast and ovarian cancers commonly affecting women.
“The biomonitoring project, on the other hand, will involve sampling of Filipino individuals and analyzing whether exposure of patients to certain chemicals is associated with higher risk of developing cancer,” he added.
Meanwhile, at UP Diliman, a new shared genomics core laboratory was unveiled at the Philippine Genome Center.
Also funded by the PCARI, the project features advanced equipment that could be used in genomic research on health and diseases, agriculture, biodiversity and ethnicity, industry and environment in the Philippines.
UP Manila National Institutes of Health executive director Eva Maria Cutiongco-de la Paz, the project leader, said the facility would be useful in medical research, noting that genome sequencing could be used to diagnose inherited and acquired diseases.
She also bared plans to sequence Filipino genomes to understand genetic diseases and disorders within the Philippine population.
Molecular research
Meanwhile, DLSU has procured a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectrometer that can accelerate molecular research.
“In order to study the potential of a molecule, there is a need to fully characterize its chemical structure, which the NMR machine can provide,” said Drexel Camacho, NMR manager and interim scientific director of the DLSU Central Instrumentation Facility in its Laguna campus.
“In the area of drug discovery research, for example, the NMR is the ultimate tool in characterizing the chemical structure of compounds isolated from plants,” he added.
The equipment, which will be housed at the DLSU Laguna campus, can provide information crucial in pharmaceutical research, according to Camacho, as he stressed its impact on academic research and development efforts in the country.
Innovation center
At the university belt, the Far Eastern University (FEU) has inaugurated an innovation center that will serve as think-tank and incubation center for business ideas.
“There are many creative Filipinos who only need the right resources to see their vision materialize,” FEU president Michael Alba said.
He added that the project would enable students and teachers to initiate programs that will have social impact.
Currently exclusive for FEU students and teachers, the innovation center will accept project proposals that will undergo market validation, product development and prototyping, and intellectual property and management assistance.