The University of the Philippines (UP)-Diliman, in partnership with the Department of Agriculture (DA), will launch a training program for science teachers in college so they will be able to teach basic genetic engineering in general science courses.

In an interview with Business-Mirror, Dr. Cynthia Hedreyda, director of the UP National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (NIMBB), said the training program aims to allay and debunk the fears of students on genetic engineering.

“I think this is one of the effective ways to teach students, regardless of their courses, the basic knowledge on genetic engineering, genetically modified organism [GMO] and other related stuff,” she said.

Under the program, UP-Diliman and the DA will choose one school per region to avail itself of the training. Only state colleges and universities will be the beneficiaries of the training program, which will start in November.

The DA will fund the P5-million training program, where each school can send a maximum of two representatives. Furthermore, each school will also be provided one personal computer, PowerPoint presentations, handouts and training manuals for basic experiments regarding genetic engineering.

The NIMBB will handle the training of teachers which will last for one week.

Hedreyda said there is still a lot to be done to make many Filipinos more aware about genetic engineering, GMOs, gene alteration and cloning. She said the majority of Filipinos think genetic engineering brings negative effects on crops and food.

“They believe GMOs threaten the environment and its spread might affect the balance of nature,” she said.

Furthermore, Hedreyda said people believe GMO products contain allergens that cause allergies when eaten. “Developers of genetically modified products will not put allergenic materials because it will be counter- productive,” she pointed out.

Hedreyda said there was an initial hesitation among freshman students in UP-Diliman when it was introduced four years ago.

“However, they found the subject enlightening after completing it,” she said.

Aside from UP-Diliman, UP-Los Baños is only the other school offering general science subject combined with genetic engineering.

Genetic engineering started in the early 1900s based on experiments by the Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel, who is famous for his works on heredity.

Genetic engineering is the alteration of genes by addition of a small amount of genetic material from other organisms through molecular techniques, which aims at development of new substances or improving functions of existing organisms.

Current commercially available GMO in the country is the controversial Bt corn, wherein the naturally occurring soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, was added to the corn to make it resistant to corn borer. Bt corn is used as an alternative to spraying insecticides to control corn borer.

Genetic engineering is considered today as the most exciting and controversial branch of the biological sciences.