Stories from th Lab

allow them to seek the major where their passion lies.

Perhaps, the thought of the initiative only helping the freshmen crossed one’s mind. The initiative benefited the organizations who came together for the project to reach its fruition. Like usual major activities, the initiative established committees, namely Educations, Publicity, Copyright, Distribution, and Proofreading Committee. Members coming from different organizations worked in cooperation with each other to finish the reviewer before classes started to give the freshies time to study in advance.

The process launched online, since we only planned to release soft copies of the reviewer. At the start, it was awkward, with only a few members interacting with each other. As time went by, the atmosphere lightened, and soon enough everyone transformed into an active contributor, sharing their opinions regarding several aspects of the reviewer. Everybody did their best to contribute and produce excellent outputs evident in ReBIOer. In addition, we sought for help from the IBS faculty to ensure that the contents of the reviewer are correct and well-organized while avoiding spoon-feeding of the freshies. The initiative united us to achieve a single goal, that is, to help the freshmen in their academics, especially during the pandemic.

The Haynayan Initiative molded itself into a discrete proof that the collaboration of IBS organizations accomplishes invaluable service to others. In each step of the way, we celebrated minor achievements and supported each other in whatever way we can. There were several trials while making the reviewer and meeting the deadlines, but everyone persevered and we could proudly release our work on August 31, 2020. As of now, over a hundred distributed copies helped the freshies in their studies.

In this chaotic and constantly changing world, it is important to use our experiences to become stronger and face our dilemmas, whatever they may be. We fight the current situation back, rendering them fangless in halting us from learning and advocating for change.

Stories from the Lab: Merc Matienzo, A Medical Frontliner in the COVID-19 Pandemic

by JOHN DANE VALDEZ (Allosyndesis)

He went on from serving his fellow resident members to serving the Filipino people, “I joined RITM in 2017 because I armed only with his intellect and passion wanted to follow the path of research for molecular biology. endeavors in molecular biology,”

Merc Emil Matienzo (Riboswitch) is an alumnus from The UPLB Genetics Society, who is a medical frontliner at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), working as a molecular biologist.

In his undergraduate years, Merc Matienzo was a BS Biology student, majoring in Cell and Molecular Biology. During his time as a resident member, he was the 32nd term’s Editor-inChief of GENEWS (The Official Publication of The UPLB Genetics Society). In the following year, he served as the organization’s President/ Executive Committee Head. After graduating from the university, he applied and eventually got accepted at RITM. Matienzo says. “When I finally got in, I realized that RITM is more than just a research facility—it is also a learning center, a biosafety powerhouse, and an unequaled treatment hospital all in one.” During his first few years in the institute, he became part of the laboratory technical staff at the RITM—National TB Reference Lab, which performed genotypic drug susceptibility testing (DST) for the Programmatic Management of Drug-resistant Tuberculosis (PMDT) patients all over the country.

All was well and good for Matienzo for his first two years at RITM, but he did not know that he was about to face his greatest challenge yet as a molecular biologist: COVID-19. January 30, 2020 marked the first case of COVID-19 in the Philippines, and the first death in the country occured only two days later. At the time, RITM was the only institute in the country capable of testing for COVID-19, since they have the means and the accreditation to procure confirmatory test kits.

“I can’t exactly remember where I was when the news broke out about the pandemic, but I was probably inside lab, facing the BSC, and handling TB specimens as part of my work routine,” Matienzo recalls. “Next thing I know, I was already one people manipulating this mysterious pathogen inside the RITM Outbreak Laboratory.”

Shortly after announcing the country’s first case of COVID-19, Matienzo became a laboratory staff augmenter for the RITM COVID-19 rRTPCR testing. Currently, he is also a technical member of the Department of Health— McKinsey One Day Diagnostic Team that evaluates and assesses laboratory processes and recommends solutions to improve the operations of COVID-19 rRT-PCR labs in NCR.