 and welcome back to Health Issues here at TV UP. This is your host, Dr. Teddy Herbosa, dealing with the issues of health today. For this issue, we will be talking to one of our top molecular biology scientists in the country. She will tell us the story of how the Philippine Genome Center and its contribution to the current pandemic has been vital. Let's all welcome our guest, Professor Sintya Saloma of the Philippine Genome Center. Hi, Sintya. Hello, good morning, E.B.P. Ted. And thank you very much for having me today. Well, first let me ask you about your background. How did you get into this field of molecular biology? Oh, the story is rather circuitous. Originally, my degree was fisheries. It was a recipient of a scholarship in UP Desires. I finished very early, three and a half years, and I wanted to go to grad school, so I was looking for a grad school. But it so happened that I applied to Japan's Amon Butchers Scholarship and I was too young to go to grad school, so I took a molecular biology, it's a BSDG. And then when I was in... I cannot go back to fisheries because I already know it's at least on the undergrad level, so I went to molecular biology, and then it so happened that I was lucky enough to enter one of the oldest, the most pioneering department of molecular biology in Japan, and this was in Nagoya University. So it has a genome center in 1967, would you believe? So it was very, very early and this is really a powerhouse of a lot of biophysicists of Japan. So a lot of the people who discovered, for example, non-muscle acting and the gelsolin system, were really our professors. So I entered Nagoya University as a molecular biologist and there I entered also a lab that was... which is a developmental biology lab. So our model system was the mouse, and that's how my journey with mouse genetics and mammalian genetics happened. So eventually my professor went to Osaka University and the school or the department I was in was really a powerhouse for immunology research. So this was the lab of Dr. Taniguchi for the interlucent system. So they wanted to expand to higher systems in complex systems. So they recruited our advisor, my advisor, Dr. Kondo, and the entire lab ran from Nagoya University to Osaka University. This is the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology and it was a nice campus, new buildings. So I was saying when I entered Nagoya, my building was new. When I entered Osaka, the building was also very, very impressive building. That's an interesting story. And when did you return to the University of the Philippines? Oh, I returned in 1998. I joined NIMBB. So I had... Dr. Ted, I was thinking where should I go? Should I go to RITM? Should I go to St. Luke's? Because I was looking around for a place where there is a robust research. And then I was shopping around and then my husband convinced me eventually NBB will become a national institute. So I applied to NBB. Actually, I applied to LaSalle. Also, they did not respond. I applied to LaSalle. So I applied to LaSalle. They did not respond. Because when you are graduating from your PhD degree, you try to send all your resumes to the different labs. So I went to NIMBB and it was really, really funny when I was being interviewed because rather than, you know, faculty members interviewing me, it was actually asking them whether they have this equipment, they have this or that, how do you buy, for example, these tubes, et cetera, et cetera. Because I was already thinking, how am I going to begin a research program in the Philippines? So before I left Japan, I already listed what are the things I needed to start a lab. And it was really, really... I was really, really lucky when I arrived in the Philippines. And NIMBB is a very colored history and that was a time when many people left in NIMBB in 1998. So it was essentially very, very... We have very, very few faculty members but lots of equipment. Some of them were not yet opened. So we, yeah, we designed our experiments in the laboratory trying to utilize a lot of equipment in NIMBB. That was from the... I think it was from World Bank, World Bank Asset Project. So there were a lot of equipment. So we designed our laboratory experiments to test whether we can do RNA in-situ hybridization here in the Philippines. And it was a very nice time in the sense that I was... I had no children then. I was so busy. I was hyperactive doing a lot of things every weekend. So every Saturday, we will go to NBB in Albert Hall. That was Albert Hall then. Then we started a mouse lab. Oh, we did not even have proper cages during the time we made our own cages and so on and so forth. But we were also very lucky because the students are really, really nice. NBB is really like a family. Everybody was supportive. So we were not so many. But eventually, we crafted the NIMBB as a national institute. And it became a national institute. So that's very interesting because many scientists who study abroad and train abroad eventually come back and instead complain they don't have this equipment. They do not have this. I like your attitude because you just tried to look for a place where they will do research and will probably listen to your wishes for equipment. And you found a home at the University of the Philippines. So tell me the story of how NIMBB grew the National Institute for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. How did it become a national institute? So it has been in the works for quite some time. There's really a network of national institutes of molecular biology and biotechnology in the country. But during that time the one in Dileman was still a program. It was still a program. So we had to craft the IRR. We helped to craft the IRR so that we can have it as a national institute. So there was a committee that was formed. And if you pitted in the beginning we did not even have our own faculty members. We borrowed faculty members from the College of Science from biology, from physics, from MSI. So eventually with NIMBB. So it became a national institute under objective order number four. And then there was some budget in the beginning. So we tried to make do with a budget and it was really MacGyver in many ways because our laboratories were not really built to be molecular biology laboratories. At that time, the budgets were very hard because we weren't our money, our economy, the national budget. You have to fight for your piece of the pie. So how did you do that? Can you imagine we paid a budget in the beginning was $50,000 a year and that was our budget. So imagine that. So you know how did we survive? We designed our experiments in a way where $50,000 will work. So for example, our PCR work is not so expensive. And then I even did a lot of RNA in-situ, home-mount in-situ hybridization work. And the question of a lot of people who studied abroad because I studied in Japan for 10 years and a lot of people are really unprepared for the situation when they return to the country they expect a facility or a lab or a building that is already functional and they will just enter. It did that really happen to us. On the one hand, of course, they were as an equipment but on the other hand it is really, really important that you prepare your mind on how to start your own lab. So I wrote the Chancellor I actually wrote the Chancellor asking for a stereo microscope with camera system. There's nothing to lose. I requested the Chancellor I wrote the letter there is no one else doing the work. I do. I am culturing mouse embryos and organ explants and I need a camera system a stereo microscope with camera system and it was given half a million pesos to buy that stereo microscope it was really nice. Yeah, it was 498,000 pesos so I was happy and they can demonstrate how to do operations how can I do lung explant culture and the good thing about doing all this cell culture work of course there's also molecular biology work but there is also something beautiful about cell biology is the students can see in culture for example an explant of a lung that is pumping it can do that and then you see branching morphogenesis every day and then I also taught the students how to culture primary culture of cardiomyocytes and they will beat with synchronicity in the microscope so it was I mean even made a video out of it so I was often asked in the beginning don't I get bored because there are a lot of stories of people who came from the US particularly from the US who came back to the Philippines and eventually stayed and then they returned to the US so I think it's really a question of frame of mind because their expectations are that the lab will be ready that everything is ready here it's really a battlefield if you're going to survive you have to be very very innovative so for example because we are experimentalists if you pretend for example we cannot even begin doing an experiment unless everything is in front of us it's not like you are a theoretical mathematician where you can just do computations after the tree for us who are experimentalists the culture, the vessel should be there the disposable material should be there the media should be there so it's really very very careful planning months and years ahead until such time that everything is in front of you and we have to of course deal with a procurement system so not only did you come back with an expertise in molecular biology the setting trained you to be an administrator of research and by correct correct learning about government policy on how is that learning about government budgeting system and how to get audited and get it correct so that's actually the hard part many scientists do not want to do that part correct and EVP a lot of people go through foundations just to cut corners you know we never did we never did we followed all the procurement rules all the university if it takes three quotations if it's new if you need to have this and that we followed it so every time sometimes I hear people complaining about procurement it's it does not compare to the procurement we do in MBB every day we procure reagents and we just have to be battle tested and it is also very important that we train our young people and our junior faculty members of how this was done so a lot of conversations were done also with suppliers because sometimes you remember before of course we did not have so much budget but the suppliers will actually collect all the orders and then order three months later can you imagine how are we going to survive with that one these experiments will be awaiting waiting so that will not happen so I talked to a lot of managers and suppliers even if I have to pay or we have to pay for example for FedEx we will we can continue the research the first time is really really difficult because you don't have a warehouse of the agents you don't have a warehouse of disposable materials so the first time you do it is really the most difficult but then we continue years later it's easy because now you have a battery in your freezer you have a lot of the agents and that also was very very important Dr. Ted when we tried to do the genomic surveillance DOH asked us we already have the agents so that's one administration another one that I think will attribute to you is that when I became EVP in February I got an invitation from a certain professor Sincha Saloma to visit the National Institutes of Collector Biology and Budget Technology I think the fact that she realized that the executive vice president of the Philippines was a medical doctor that I got this invitation I think you're also good not only with administration but doing also the networking correct the idea there is if you will mentor young people in science and research the key is to find out the correct networks correct so tell me about that invitation sneaky invitation to help you out yes EVP that was really really nice you know we strategize we have an EVP who is a medical doctor and they think it is very important for the university to be able to visit our labs in NIMBB and for them to see what we do we are very serious scientists of course we always welcome help from the UP administration in terms of equipment repairs and so on and so forth and we were very very privileged in EVP I can remember very clearly when you visited NIMBB for the first time you know so it was fun and not many people I think I was just weeks weeks into sitting correct correct yes yes it was happy you remember that I was really happy to meet all the people I was happy and in a way also sad because I've seen laboratories elsewhere I've visited national institutes of health in the US in France and other places and I saw how cramped you were you had in the corridors I saw you were modifying certain rules because certain labs have to be negative pressure and all that stuff so I saw how you modified the and you already had a building that was the NIMBB yeah true still I saw that the support of administration was not enough it was critical also it was very important for any administrator or any scientist you really have to engage the administration and you have to make them understand your needs and the best EVP is really to bring them to your center we also did that to our vice president for finance we asked him to visit the institute because we wanted we wanted him to see that we needed to have these repairs and chatare chatara so he was also very happy to be invited I like that tour because it was a science tour I was entering a job for a university administration but when when you dragged me to that center you know my scientific instincts got stimulated yes you remember I had a lot of questions yes the whole morning imagine it was just supposed to be a short visit I decided to ask a lot of questions yeah yeah you shared with us also experiences of trauma surgery and your experience in Malaysia I remember that one you know it was a very nice experience for us and also because they also were doing genome sequencing in Malaysia of all the citizens at that time well let's transfer now to another topic and I'd like to ask you about the contributions of NIMBB as a research institute I mean what do you think is the most important contribution before so that you got recognized what contributions did you give for molecular biology in the Philippines into science and technology in the Philippines to education of this highly specialized field yes you know NIMBB is one of the most stringent criteria for entering the university so we often get the best and the brightest in the university along of course with InterMed so as far as brain power and commitment and dedication are concerned we get that from our students it's very important for us from the faculty side that we're able to nurture all these talents so that is one so I think one of the best contributions that the institute has really done is to create this manpower in molecular biology and biotechnology for the Philippines a lot of our students are working in different labs in the Philippines from RITM to also the pharmaceutical companies a lot of these are NBB graduates also for patents and particularly intellectual property there are also NBB graduates there and of course for biomedical research PGH has a lot of NBB graduates and I think to a certain extent a lot of people were wondering what will be the job prospects for my for my daughter or for my son is they're going to go into NBB because they were always thinking about the biotech industry and so on and so forth and if there is any contribution this pandemic has shown it is the critical role of molecular biologists in diagnostics in molecular detection and probably in the design of therapeutics going forward so I think for the Philippines it's really the talent pool that we have created we continue to do so in the beginning we only we only accepted about 35 25 will enter some of them will go to internment by the way so we only had about 25 to 35 students when we moved to the new building we decided to increase it to 60 because we need to have more people and EVP easy to train and molecular biologists it's very expensive you need to have also very dedicated faculty members who are willing to nurture young talent at least for NBB what we do is the problem of raising funds or looking for equipment is the problem of the advisor the important thing is students to really really be very very dedicated into the work that they do and to put their heart into it so not everyone is given to work at the institute and to be mentored by this dedicated team of faculty members and I think it comes out now that we have a lot of a number of graduates who are also contributing to this effort particularly for COVID testing by surveillance and of course therapeutics and some for vaccine development you know Professor Sinha I was witness to what you have done in terms of creating the manpower pool I lectured about the latter semester of that year the first semester of 2017 to institute of biology and I asked the class it was a class of about almost 40 students and I asked them how many are going to medicine I think only two or three raised their hands so I suppose after I visited your center most of them want to be molecular biologists you created what you've done in developing the national institute is that you created an inspiration or a a view as you said you created the manpower there were people who wanted to become molecular biologists like you and the people you worked with so that that to me is a very major contribution because we won't have what we have now like the Philippine Genome Center the NIMBB if not for manpower because people don't realize the machines don't work by themselves correct the researchers won't happen without the the researchers getting the grants and getting all the money to run the research so people is very important and you helped a lot and tell me about how NIMBB help other molecular biology students from other universities and other researchers yes so NIMBB when it became a national institute so we moved to a new facility and we realize also that it is very very important to create a larger pool of experts in molecular biology and biotechnology so we created a lot of outreach programs and also training programs on modules for other schools in the beginning we have this biotech facts we went around the country to help from high school to college students about the fundamentals of molecular biology just to update them of their talents and skills and from time to time we also host students doing their research with us and we act as advisors to a lot of graduate schools in Manila so you know molecular biology is a very it's a very small area the expertise we practically know each other and it is very very important that we capacitate everyone not just the state universities but also private schools hospitals and universities about the the concept of molecular biology because molecular biology is at the core of a lot of our research projects you can be a pharmacist you can be a chemical engineer and agricultural person you can be an infectious disease specialist but at the very core the tools of molecular biology cut across all these disciplines and it is very important that from medtex to medical doctors to our agricultural scientists they need to have the grounding about the tools of molecular biology and the power that it could enrich their research projects Do you remember my question to you because I'm a trauma surgeon and I was asking you about genetic predispositions to survival in major trauma which were studies of my colleagues or papers I was meeting and said and you told me that could be done so I need to find a young person Yeah, that's very true because in the psyche of people the word molecular has already entered molecular detection molecular lab so I think it's also very good because you are seeing a lot of interest among young people to pursue careers in molecular biology I think that's really really important There are some words there molecular and the next word is actually genome the word genome genetic so bring me to the story of how the Philippine Genome Center that you now had was born Yeah Oh, really the story Yeah the story is really because Dr. Menchit Padilya Chancellor Menchit Padilya became what's the host of the Asia Pacific Hugo Convention in Cebu So we needed to meet a lot of us mostly female female female heads from Dr. P. I. N. P. Dan myself Dr. Kau Dr. Gisel and a lot of us we were together meeting in her house in White Plains for breakfast trying to to design what will be the how are going to to implement or are going to host that convention in Cebu it was super superbonga convention in Cebu and the program the scientific program was so good the lineup of speakers was so good and it was then that Chancellor President President Roman was there and as Dr. Menchit do we have something like this in the Philippines and she said no so my goodness we were assigned we were assigned to craft something similar so myself Dr. Menchit Padilya and Dr. Amelia Guevara and Dr. Gisel Conception the four of us we went around the Asia Pacific Region as well as in the US trying to ask for advice and to observe the genome centers in the different parts of the world we were also enriched by with advice from the Filipino diaspora in the US so we were in Utah Dr. Oliveira hosted us many people from NIH Dr. Pedro Se Dr. Padlan they were there in Utah so we were sitting and we were thinking of what kind of genome center should we make for the Philippines and of course we visited Dr. Puro Ganan in New York but also brought us to the National History Museum and they have a genome center there at the top floor night at the museum so we realized wow they were engaged in genome research for these dinosaurs and all these creatures from very very old era and they were engaged with it and then of course finally we went to the Broad Institute in Boston and they were very very nice of course we also went to Baylor they were very nice in helping us advising us what should be done what are the challenges of a genome center because you just really cannot make a copy of any genome center you really have to make a genome center that works for your own country so that was the origin of it so we started it was really really virtual in the beginning no equipment no building nothing no staff also so that was our first executive director was Dr. Amelia Guevara and then she asked me yes and then the BOR approved a genome center July 31 when you asked me to visit you at the National Institutes of Molecular Biotechnology you pointed that will be our new home correct correct so yeah so we were able to get grants from the DOST for capacity building in genomics so the first generation of equipment we had were really because of a grant from the procedure and also that was also the beginning of the bioinformatics for facilities so Dr. Ted everybody was was very happy when we integrated it in our temporary home in MBD the genome center then because sometimes we have so many plans and so many projects and then I never come to tuition but that one was a functioning DNA sequencing laboratory so we were very happy and we were able to essentially capacitate and enrich the research of our researchers can you imagine the part of molecular NIMBB and then we have all these labs and we cannot even sequence our own constructs you know the process we engineer we have to send to Korea to Singapore to Australia it should that be actually we need very very fast sequencing and the only way we can do it is to do it here so that was really important so we service the genome center service from Nindana Visayas Luzon and everywhere and you know of course you can send samples abroad but it's really there's really nothing like being able to talk to us and consult us with your problems with your proposals so that you can create a proper budget so that's that advice is free and that is why we try to help other capacitate other universities and other researchers to enrich their proposals so for example VPTED sometimes you see other proposals and they are only doing this and then we sometimes suggest to them why don't you extend your research into this field into this area it will really enrich your project so you just have to show to them that this can be done and that if if that and then because we are easy to talk to because anyway you're talking to a fellow Filipino on the phone then or on an email so you can ask the questions you want so it's still a work in progress but I think we were able to reach out to many areas around the country and to show to them that this can be done and of course the big boost was when we had the Picari the Picari grant no the Ched Picari grant wow that was really great Dr. Dr. Eva Konser Eric Lila-Pars and Dr. Bo Padilla yeah that was really great for Nia Advanced Research Institute which gave the Genome Center 360 million for the equipment that we are now using for the Genomic Resurveillance so we are capable of doing human genome sequencing several times over with several equipment there and more than the equipment we need to have the ability or of course at the beginning the budget to train people so EVP you cannot just import people we cannot give them the competitive salaries they are used to abroad so we really have to train people from the ground up from sequencing to bioinformatics and it's very very nice and it's really also a privilege for me to be surrounded by young people who are so talented and are practically awake to out the day if you ask them to do something they deliver so it's really really inspiring that's a really inspiring story and maybe we'll run out of time and I'd like you to say a few words to the viewers so that you can tell them and you can inspire other people there may be some young person is interested in molecular biology some young scientist wants to develop a lab give them your inspirational words so for the many young people who are interested in science and who believe that they have an aptitude for science I think a career in science and particularly in molecular biology is for you there is no other time in history where a career in the life sciences is here we have the tools of molecular biology and genetics in our fingertips and it will really really empower you research and pursuing this kind of work is really a really self-actualization a process of self-actualization because every time you wake up you feel energized because you know that your life and your work has meaning and that it has also impact for public health and for our nation's problems and for generating new knowledge so for the young people out there please continue believing that you can pursue your dreams and we are also here to mentor you and to help you in the process Thank you Very much Professor Sintya Saloma Executive Director of the Philippine Genome Center our top molecular biologist in the University of the Philippines probably the whole time for the stories you've given us you have really inspired many people with the work you've done and not only that your years of work has now contributed but ladies and gentlemen we will tackle that in the next episode of TV UP's Health Issues This is your host Dr. Tether Bosa Thank you for joining us with the story of Professor Sintya Saloma