|
Fourth of a series
 Since
its establishment in 1974, the University of the
Philippines-Marine Science Institute (UPMSI), under the
leadership of Dr. Edgardo D.
Gomez, spawned exemplary achievements in
biodiversity, biotechnology and sustainable use of
marine bioresources.
In the late 1970s, UPMSI led the way in
undertaking national coral-reef surveys in the world.
It adheres to an interdisciplinary
approach to proceed rapidly from surveys, which provided
the baseline for assessing the status of marine
biodiversity in the Philippines and the Asean region, to
researches explaining the biology, ecology, population
genetics and biogeography of corals, marine
invertebrates, seagrass, seaweeds and phytoplankton.
At UPMS, marine biotechnology has
evolved from culturing of marine species to biochemical
characterization, isolation and structural determination
of bioactive compounds, and to genetic engineering for
the improvement of seaweed strains.
The UPMSI researchers’ discoveries
provided molecular tools in neuroscience and lead
compounds for drug development from cone snails, sponges
and tunicates.
The internationally recognized UPMSI
researchers have provided technical assistance to
industry and coastal communities for sustainable
utilization of the country’s marine bioresources, and
strengthening of the Philippine marine sector as a
participant in the global bioeconomy.
 Professor
Nelia P. Cortes-Maramba
has led a multi-disciplinary group of
scientist-researchers in the systematic and scientific
investigation of Philippine medicinal plants for more
than 30 years.
This has brought to national attention
the importance of safe and effective medicinal plants as
accessible, cost-effective alternative medicines for
common ailments.
She championed the use of
medicinal-plant preparations through appropriate
technology to promote the use of safe and effective
medicinal plants in the community. She consistently
encouraged the National Integrated Research Program on
Medicinal Plants toward the development and widespread
acceptance of pharmaceutical preparations of
scientifically validated medicinal plants, resulting in
the inclusion of akapulko, lagundi, sambong, tsaang
gubat and yerba Buena to the 2005 Sixth Edition of the
Philippine National Drug Formulary/Essential Drug list.
Professor Cortes-Maramba extended
guidance to the World Health Organization in the
preparation of standards and guidelines on research
methodology on medicinal plants, and to the Department
of Health in the formulation of regulatory standards for
herbal medicines.
She continues to teach young researchers
on the rigors of scientific investigation of Philippine
medicinal plants.
 Dr.
Joel Joseph S. Marciano Jr. and Dr. Manuel C. Ramos Jr.,
associate professors of electrical and electronics
engineering (EEE) at the UP-Diliman (UPD), jointly lead
the Digital Provide team which deploys low-cost,
functional wireless solutions to connect remote public
high schools to the Internet.
Dr. Ramos is chairman of the UPD-EEE
department. He obtained his BS Electrical Engineering
from UP in November 1991, and MS and PhD degrees at
Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.
He teaches control-systems theory and
robotics to undergraduate and graduate students. He was
the UP-Banatao Fellow in UC Berkeley in 2006, where he
studied the use of low-cost, long-distance,
solar-powered wireless links for rural communities in
the Philippines under the TIER (Technology
Infrastructure for Emerging Regions) group.
He is instrumental in deploying wireless
links in public schools in Batangas, Cagayan, Zambales
and Batanes.
Dr. Ramos, along with his students,
formed Tactic (Technology Affecting Communities,
Technology Improving Communities) to address social
issues in the rural setting through technology.
Meanwhile, Dr. Marciano currently holds
the Professor Emeritus Norbert S. Vila Professorial
Chair at UP Diliman. He obtained his BS Electrical
Engineering from UP in 1994 and his PhD. from the
University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, in
2001.
He has coauthored at least 20 papers on
adaptive antennas and their applications in mobile
wireless-communication systems. He was the UP-Banatao
Postdoctoral Fellow at the Berkeley Wireless Research
Center of UC Berkeley in 2004. Discussions with
technopreneur Diosdado Banatao led to the initiative of
applying wireless technology for rural schools in the
Philippines. It also provided the seeds for the Digital
Provide project.
He leads the Digital Provide wireless
Internet link deployments in public high schools in his
adopted home province of Oriental Mindoro. Together with
his students, he launched a technology star-up that
develops RFID platforms for local and global markets.
Dr. Marciano is a recipient of the 2008
Gawad Chanselor Para Sa Natatanging Guro at UP Diliman.
Prof. Josephine Dionisio of the College
of Social Sciences and Philosophy in UP Diliman, who
leads the social-impact study in the project, joins Dr.
Ramos and Dr. Marciano on the team.
 Dr.
EVELYN MAE TECSON-MENDOZA led the
Biochemistry Team in “pushing the frontiers of plant
biochemistry in the Philippines,” and which is
recognized for its outstanding research achievements in
plant biochemistry.
Boldly harnessing the emerging frontiers
in plant biochemistry, the Institute of Plant Breeding
at the UP Los Bańos Biochemistry Research Team pioneered
and contributed significantly in the discovery of new
scientific knowledge, development of technologies and
methodologies.
They are in the areas of physicochemical
and biochemical studies of important Philippine
agricultural crops; biochemical mechanisms of plant
resistance against selected pests and diseases; basic
studies on coconut oil and proteins, including the
biochemical basis for the makapuno coconut phenotype’s
development and use of biochemical and molecular tools
in studying genetic diversity of plants and pests;
development of papaya with delayed ripening trait by
genetic engineering; physicochemical, functional,
molecular studies and engineering of mungbean proteins;
and gene-discovery initiatives in important crops.
The research outputs are published as
123 technical papers in peer-reviewed journals and books
and earned five Outstanding Research Team awards, more
than 30 individual achievement awards and 20 Best Paper
awards.
The team mentored and graduated eight
PhD, 32 MS and more than 40 BS students and trained many
more who are now researchers, educators and leaders here
and abroad.
Much of the research work of the Team is
characterized by collaboration with scientists from
within and outside the Philippines.
 Dr.
Caesar A. Saloma published his first paper in
the February 15, 1990, issue of Optics Letters about his
PhD. dissertation on speckle reduction in laser
microscopy supervised by Osaka University’s Prof. Shigeo
Minami and Dr Satoshi Kawata.
This essentially signaled the start of
cutting-edge photonics research at the Instrumentation
Physics Laboratory (IPL) of the National Institute of
Physics (NIP), in UP Diliman. Photonics is the science
and technology of generating, guiding and detecting
light energy (photons).
Between February 1990 and December 2007,
Dr. Saloma’s group at IPL published more than 80 papers
in leading optics and applied-physics journals in the US
and Europe, including Optics Express, Optics Letters,
Applied Physics Letters and Applied Optics.
A number of these publications were
featured in technology magazines like Photonics Spectra
(August 2002 issue, April 2006 issue), MRS Bulletin
(December 2004, Materials Research Society), Laser Focus
World (January 2006), GIT Imaging & Microscopy (March
2006) and Optics & Photonics News (December 2006,
Optical Society of America).
On June 26, 2007, IPL researchers were
awarded a US patent (No. 7,235,988; Inventors: C. Saloma,
V. Daria, J. Miranda) for inventing a method to generate
high-contrast images of semiconductor sites via
one-photon optical beam induced current imaging and
confocal reflectance microscopy.
Between April 1993 and April 2008, Dr.
Saloma mentored 17 PhD. graduates in photonics and
complex systems research at UP-NIP.
The International Commission for Optics
conferred the 2004 Galileo Galilei award to Dr. Salosma
for his significant contributions to optics achieved
under unfavorable conditions. He is the first and only
Asean scientist to receive such award.
To be
continued … … … |
