‘Phl needs biotech awareness’

MANILA, Philippines – Local scientists and researchers said there was a need to raise awareness on the benefits brought by biotechnology or “biotech” to help the Philippines come up with new drugs, diagnostic tools and vaccines, and also to boost the country’s agricultural productivity.

The country’s top biotech experts in the fields of health sciences and agriculture gathered late last year in a “Biotechnology 101 for Consumers” forum held at the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) central office in UP Diliman, Quezon City, calling for the promotion of bio- technology research and development in human health sciences and in agriculture.

Dr. Nina Gloriani of the UP Manila College of Public Health and the Biotech Coalition of the Philippines said that there was a lack of information in the country regarding breakthroughs in the fields of medicine, particularly on new drug discovery that was made possible through biotechnology.

She said that synthetic human insulin, which helps millions of people around the world afflicted with diabetes, was produced from bio- tech research and development by pioneering biotech corporation Genentech back in 1979.

“In terms of medicines manufactured and health care, biotechnology has produced many useful products,” Gloriani said in her presentation last November, citing figures from the European Common Market for 2011.

“More than 325 million patients benefited from approved medicines manufactured through biotechnology and gene technology,” she said.

Biotech, she pointed out, had made possible the discovery of vaccines for hepatitis B, the human papillomavirus, and was also being tapped to fund cures for cancer.

In the field of agriculture, Merle Palacpac of the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Plant Industry, said that the country’s agricultural biotech researchers and scientists are deep into research and development (R&D) efforts that tap biotech to come up with disease resistant, and high yielding varieties of rice, corn, and eggplant.

Biotech R&D, she said, was ongoing to develop a variety of papaya that has a longer ripening period, and reduce spoilage and wastage of shipments of the country’s papaya farmers for export or for the local market.

Sadly, she said cutting edge biotech R&D ac- tivities were being hindered by misconceptions and misinformation about biotech and geneti- cally modified crops.