TORREVILLAS

solutions to vital societal issues.

At least 16 higher education institutions in the Philippines have partnered with five University of California campuses to pursue R&D studies under the Philippine-California Advanced Research Institutes (PCARI) Project of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). The University of the Philippines and the Ateneo de Manila University are just two of our universities that are collaborating with the likes of University of California Los Angeles, UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco to come up with studies focused on two priority areas: health innovation and translational medicine (HITM) and information infrastructure development (IID).

The PCARI Project was approved in 2013 as a new approach to enhance the skills and expertise of faculty, students, and staff of Philippine higher education institutions (HEIs). Through scholarships, training, and research partnerships with leading research universities in California, USA, the Project builds the capacity of Philippine colleges and universities for research that translates to technological innovations, strategic policies and concrete solutions to vital societal issues in health, food security, energy, environmental quality, disaster mitigation and others.

The Project has so far supported 29 collaborative research and development initiatives and 142 scholars including 10 pursuing graduate studies in the University of California (UC).

In the area of HITM, two of the most important findings to date are (1) discovery of ten pure compounds from plants and marine organisms with potential to treat drug resistant (artemisinin-resistant) malaria, and a lowcost portable diagnostic kit that can detect dengue as early as two days of the onset of fever that can be used by rural health workers in far flung areas of the country.

It’s interesting to know that in the area of information infrastructure development, one “invention” is a customized, low cost, low power and compact community cellular network that can extend the reach of mobile phones to hitherto unserved remote rural areas. With isolated communities in Aurora, Quezon as pilot test sites, it could be replicated in rural communities with no access to cellular communications.

Another result of the studies is an early warning system for plant diseases affecting banana plantations, which could be useful to our banana plant owners and farmers.

For 2017, PCARI has announced a new cycle of Request for Proposals for funding this year. Proposals must address significant societal problems and have the potential to bring about and sustain technology transfer or commercialization activities. For this cycle, proposals are encouraged in Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Agriculture, Food Processing, Nutrition, Marine and Aquatic Sciences related to Health Innovation & Translational Medicine, and Information Infrastructure Development.

For information on project proposals, contact Andy Saracho, CP No. 0917530 5512. Deadline for submissions is July 31, 2017.