IN the effort to expand the coverage of Tuklas Lunas researches across the country considering the Philippines‘ rich biodiversity, the Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (DoST-PCHRD) funded the Discovery and Development of Health Products (DDHP) program, and one of its pioneer program is the Marine Component implemented by the University of the Philippines Diliman – Marine Science Institute. The […]

Findings by a team at the Division of Microbiology of the College of Arts and Sciences have opened a new research track that may yield a possible cancer treatment.

The team, led by Kristel Mae P. Oliveros, a faculty member at the Institute of Biological Sciences, has identified 30 bacteria from the soil samples of Mt. Mayon and isolated 13 that show antibiotic activity against pathogenic microorganisms.

A university-based pandemic monitor pointed out a huge gap in the COVID-19 data that was too hard to ignore as it could result in misplaced policies and misinterpretation of the severity of the situation.

As medical doctors underscore the disconnect in the situation on the ground, data analytics from the University of the Philippines (UP) Pandemic Response Team (PRT) touch on the gap and delays between laboratory test results and the data published by the Department of Health (DOH).

Health advocate Dr. Gene Nisperos of Community Medicine Development Foundation said this could be a reason “we are losing the pandemic fight. We’ve fallen behind the enemy.”

The Philippine Genome Center (PGC) Visayas received P92.6 million from the Department of Budget and Management to enhance its biosurveillance through timely whole genome sequencing (WGS) of clinical samples.

WGS is vital to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) response of the government. It can be used to detect new variants, if the variants are causing the spike in cases in certain areas, and if there are already local transmissions of the variants.

THE University of the Philippines-Philippine Genome Center (UP-PGC) satellite facility in UP-Mindanao (UP-Min) is expected to conduct whole-genome sequencing (WGS) to detect Covid-19 variants before the end of the year.

Dr. Rachel Joy Pasion, DOH-Davao Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Unit head, said in a virtual presser on Tuesday, August 31, 2021, that the UP-Min PGC is targeted to operate by November this year.

Based on their initial meetings, Pasion said the operation of UP-Min PGC is still waiting for funding for the operation of the facility.