Tuesday, August 01, 2006 MANILA, PHILIPPINES
MentorNet from Peso
By Gerardo Jose la O’
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Examining the list of persons honored with the title, "National Scientist of the Philippines," in the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) website will show that a significant majority of these people obtained their advanced degrees (M.S. or Ph.D.) abroad.
A survey of current Filipino scientists, researchers and engineers in the database Bahay Kubo Research or the Brain Gain Network also shows this same trend.
Clearly, the educational system in the Philippines is either not producing the necessary amount of advanced degree holders or the economy cannot absorb a majority of these persons, leaving them to seek opportunities elsewhere or -- worse -- both.
The dilemma is that once these technically skilled people have left the country, bringing them back home is crammed with hurdles such as inadequate facilities, lack of funding, and no technical community support, to name a few.
However, one does not actually need to physically return to the Philippines to give back knowledge, as the following example shows.
The story of Prof. Baldomero Olivera, a Distinguished Professor of Biology in the University of Utah, is something that can be emulated by the now hundreds of Filipino researchers, scientists and engineers abroad as a model of how scientific ingenuity can be "remitted" into the country. Mr. Olivera has made important scientific contributions in the family of bio-molecules collectively called conotoxins that were derived from cone shells collected in tropical waters of the Philippines. In this groundbreaking work, research collaborations were made with Prof. Lourdes J. Cruz and her students from the University of the Philippines, Marine Science Institute. The results of their nearly three-decades joint effort has been over 50 research papers published, including several articles in one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals, Science.
It is these types of connections -- foreign-based Filipino researchers and Philippine-based counterparts -- that then help increase the scientific pool of expertise in the Philippines without having the foreign-based Filipino researcher transfer their entire laboratory into the country. In addition, with the large amount of funding available abroad for basic science, these collaborations are actually a good way of increasing research support to the local scientific community without having to tap the limited funds available in the country.
Moreover, beyond the standard literature that is generated with scientific research, this collaborative effort, by professors Olivera and Cruz, has also resulted in the founding of a Philippine-based bioinformatics and biotechnology company called GeneSeas Asia Inc. This company is currently taking a lead in discovering new compounds derived from the Philippine seas, among the most biodiverse in the world, for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
This remarkable achievement is an exception to the rule.
However, with the now hundreds of Filipino researchers, scientists, and engineers abroad, a great number of these collaborative efforts can be started that will allow for creation of direct remittance channels to transfer knowledge and expertise into the emerging centers of science and techno-preneurship in the country. Areas such as agricultural biotechnology and information technology still have vast untapped potentials to provide new avenues for innovation.
Clearly, there is plenty that one can do to help the country develop while being physically away. On the scientific front, it is just a matter of stretching the imagination and reaching out to the technical community in places like Bahay Kubo Research or the Brain Gain Network for collaborative projects that can initiate these remittances of knowledge.
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