By Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.NET

MANILA, Philippines – “Keep your interests alive.”

This was the message of Balik-Scientist awardee Dr. Baldomero Olivera at the start of the 2009 National Science and Technology Week at the Manila Hotel.

Olivera, a distinguished professor of biology at the University of Utah, first gained fame for his discovery of painkilling properties in the highly toxic, ocean-going cone snails that are abundant in Philippine waters.

Olivera’s discovery led to the development of a commercial painkiller called Ziconotide (Prialt), which is administered to patients suffering from extreme pain. Unlike traditional painkiller morphine, Ziconotide is not known to cause painkiller addiction and lasts much longer in the system.

Olivera graduated from the University of the Philippines and moved to the US to take up his graduate degree in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology.

His interests in cone shells started long before he started college; in fact, he started out at a tennis court collecting shells.

“Seashells were used to compact the surface of tennis courts. They were dredged from Manila Bay and were dumped near the tennis courts. While waiting for my dad, I used to sift through the heap of shells and identified what were interesting.”

It was this interest that made him go back to cone snails for possible research. It also won him “Scientist of the Year” in 2007 by the Harvard Foundation.

At his keynote speech during the NSTW opening ceremonies, Olivera said he hopes more Filipino scientists to continue their research endeavors and to give back to the country. He said many researches can provide economic gains to both the scientific community as well as to the country.

Department of Science and Technology Secretary Estrella Alabastro said this year’s NSTW aims to spur Filipino scientists and researchers to find ways in resolving global issues. One goal is to alleviate global climate change, which is causing destruction in many industries in the Philippines, particularly agriculture.

Numerous programs will be conducted in different locations nationwide for the entire week of the NSTW. There are seminars of nanotechnology, robotics, awareness programs on waste management, business ventures based on scientific output, research presentations on health, genetics, food development, among others.

The NSTW was first created under Presidential Proclamation 2214 in 1982 and was later amended in 1993 through Republic Act 169. This declared celebrations for the NSTW on the third week of July every year.

A Filipino returning scientist is proposing to develop a solution to clean up areas that have been ruined by mining contamination.

Agustine Doronila, a University of Melbourne senior research fellow, said that he was willing to help establish a “phytoremediation” research group that would harness plants to recover contaminants from the ground and water, thereby restoring ecological balance in a mining area.

Doronila is now part of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Balik Scientist Program.

Doronila said the research, dubbed the Philippine Metalophyte Research Consortium, would be based in Ateneo De Manila University.

He said there are endemic plants in the country that could be used for phytoremediation. These include the spurge plant or Euphobiaceae (scientific name Phyllanthus balgooyi), which has been described in a study by botanist Domingo Madulid as a “hyper accumulator” or a plant that could absorb large quantities of heavy metals.

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Agence France-Presse

SAN FRANCISCO–TED on Monday began hunting for heroes in hard-pressed lands.

The Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) group famous for attracting outstanding entrepreneurs, scientists, and celebrities is opening its arms to embrace promising visionaries with life-changing dreams but meager budgets.

The door to apply, or nominate people, to be TEDGlobal fellows was opened on Monday and will close on April 3. Those chosen for fellowships will take part in this year’s TED conference in Britain at the expense of organizers.

Fellowship application information is available online.

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MANILA, Philippines—A US scientist admonished Pangasinan Representative Mark Cojuangco for “dangerously misrepresenting” a scientific study in a bid to make the lawmaker’s proposal to reopen the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) “look good.”

Dr. Kelvin Rodolfo, professor emeritus of the University of Illinois Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said he was dismayed Cojuangco misused the 2005 study the American and two fellow scientists made.

“I am dismayed that our paper was cited by Cojuangco in his exploratory note. He is being ignorant of scientific data,” said Rodolfo.

Cojuangco authored a House bill seeking to revive the $2.3-billion BNPP mothballed over two decades ago.

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By Tessa R. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer

First in a series

MANNY “Pacman” Pacquiao has been making all the right moves in the boxing ring. When the time comes he has to move out of it, what should be his next best move?

Become a sports scientist, what else. Does this sound like a jab at the moon? Not to two sports scientists who have been keenly following Pacquiao’s ascendancy in his sport.

Filipino molecular biologist and sports scientist Custer Deocaris, based in Tsukuba University in Japan but currently in the Philippines under the Balik Scientist program of the Department of Science and Technology and professor Angelita B. Cruz of the College of Human Kinetics at the University of the Philippines in Diliman urged the boxing hero to become a symbol that would herald the “golden era of sports science in the country.”

Deocaris, who presented his publications on exercise during his Dec. 8 lecture “Neurogenesis and the rewards of running: Can exercise make you smarter?” at the UP Institute of Chemistry, had returned to the Philippines to present results of his scientific team’s study on how exercise improves memory and learning.

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