ILOILO CITY -- The University of San Agustin (USA) bolstered its role as the country’s hub for medicine, public health research, and nanotechnology research with the opening of four new research facilities supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and industry partners.
The Tuklas Lunas NMR Laboratory Visayas at the Center for Natural Drug Discovery (CND3); the Mass Spectrometry Imaging Laboratory at the Center for Chemical Biology and Biotechnology (C2B2); the Center for Advance New Materials Engineering and Emerging Technologies (CANMEET); and the Center for Informatics (CFI) were inaugurated this week.
“We hope to address the problems affecting the lives of many Filipinos through research, particularly in the area of new antibiotics, public health, and nanomaterial packaging,” said USA President Fr. Frederick Comendador.
DOST Secretary Fortunato De la Peña noted that the USA will continue its role in research and development, which included its crucial role in providing skills training on Covid-19 testing in Western Visayas during the early days of the pandemic.
The research laboratories are a product of DOST’s grants-in-aid program as well as the Balik Scientist program that encouraged scientists to come back to the country.
Dr. Jonel Saludes, one of the Balik Scientists and USA’s Associate VP for Research and Global Relations, said that USA is the first institution in the country to acquire two state-of-the-art research instruments -- the cryoprobe NMR spectrometer and the imaging mass spectrometer.
In the discovery of natural medicine, the cryoprobe NMR spectrometer is used to ensure the correct identity of the medication. The imaging mass spectrometer monitors the absorption and effect of newly-discovered medicines.
The CANMEET aims to produce environmentally-friendly packaging that will reduce pollution of sachet plastic wastes.
The CFI provides policy recommendations to government agencies, local governments and hospitals for the benefit of public health and improvement of social services.