Meet our new neighbor

The Philippine Genome Center. photo from pgc.up.edu.ph

WRITTEN BY PAENG AMBAG

SINCE ITS INCEPTION IN 2009, the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) never ceased in its mission of pushing the limits of genomics and bioinformatics research in the Philippines. Now blessed with its own state-of-the-art facility, it seems that PGC’s rise up the ladder is only getting started. In a chat with PGC Executive Director, Dr. Cynthia Saloma, we take a look at the institution’s past and its relevance to Philippine society.

PGC had a humble beginning during the 2008 Human Genome Organization (HUGO)-Pacific Meeting held in Mactan, Cebu.

Saloma recalled that during the meeting, it was then-UP President Emerlinda Roman who came about with the idea of a genome center, exclaiming “Do we have something like this in the Philippines?” Her question led to the creation of a task force commissioned to prospect the operations of genomic facilities all over the globe.

“During that time, we went around Southeast Asia and also went to the United States, looking at the different genome centers, and the goal really there was to see the good practices of these genome centers, not to make them as a direct transplant of the Philippines but to probably device a genome center that is for the needs of the Filipinos at that particular time,” shared Saloma. Her team visited international institutions such as the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and the Baylor College of Medicine.

Despite the approval by the UP Board of Regents last 2009 creating PGC, the institute was still invisible to the eyes of the UP community. “We started out as a virtual facility, meaning to say, we don’t have a real office … We need to have a core facility so I was asked to draft the proposal… so I drafted 22 versions of the proposal, laymanized it, laymanized it, [and] laymanized it. It took me several months to do it, and we had it reviewed by Filipino scientists in the US and eventually, we got our grant.” Prior to having a core facility, most of PGC’s operations were housed at the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, just in front of its new building.

Asked about the institute’s biggest achievement so far, Saloma stressed, “The major achievement namin, number one, is really expanding the talent pool in genomics. We do this with a lot of internships, campaigns, media coverage and at the same time, we also hold a lot of seminars, workshops, and hands-on training.” She emphasized that expanding the talent pool first is necessary prior to setting lofty expectations for the output of the institute.

PGC also serves as an intersection of many fields in the sciences, collaborating with other institutes in College of Science for projects such as cone snails that can be potential sources of neuroactive peptides, which can help in reducing pain and stopping spasms in patients. It also serves as the main institution in collaboration with UP Los Baños and the Philippine Coconut Authority for the sequencing of the coconut genome, creating molecular IDs for different varieties that may be helpful for optimizing yield as well as the use of hybrids that are environmentally resilient.

As an institution, PGC itself is indeed only gaining traction for more stable operations. The field of genomics, albeit new, is an expensive field to nurture with most laboratory equipment costing at least a million pesos. Justifying the need for funding, Saloma emphasized, “It’s very important in our competitiveness as a nation, competitiveness in health, competitiveness in agriculture [and] competitiveness in the industry. It is at the very core of how we should be practicing medicine, how we should be prescribing drugs [and] how we develop drugs from natural products. The imperatives are there. Can you imagine in agriculture planting something, like you wanted to plant a female plant and then you planted a male, tapos five years at saka mo lang nalaman? What a waste of time, ‘di ba?”

“It’s an exciting time to do science in the Philippines,” Saloma adds. “If you’re surprised that we have an NIMBB building, how much more if we have a PGC? … We, in PGC, as well as NIMBB, and in the other institutes in the country, would like to create a home by which cutting-edge science can be pursued by our students and researchers … We also try to create a home also for people who choose to stay in the country and to pursue genomics research.”

Though housed within the doors of UP, the PGC as an institution, has a reach beyond UP, providing service in a national scale as an intersection of many sciences. Nine years may seem like a long time but one must trust the lengthy, arduous process of not only doing research but also pushing people to choose to do research.

Genomics is a very young field of science. Always remember that the structure of the DNA was only discovered last 1953, and the mapping of the human genome was not completed until late 2003. Now, we see technologies that can sequence millions of fragments of DNA in minutes, and even discoveries that can edit the genome itself. The field may be in its infancy, but we cannot deny its accelerating progress. As a developing country, we very much need to catch up, and the PGC is one good step forward in helping us do just that. ●