The Department of Science and Technology (DoST) is establishing a biotechnology laboratory in Mindanao through a P27 million project with the University of the Philippines (UP) in an aim to enhance human resource capacity building in the region – the country’s biggest production area of agro biotechnology.

Philippine Council for Advanced Science and Technology Research and Development (PCASTRD-DoST) executive director Dr. Reynaldo Ebora, in an interview, said a research station equipped with a molecular biotechnology laboratory, fermentation laboratory, incubators, tissue culture equipment and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)-based detection kits, among others, is being established in UP Mindanao to develop human resource capacity and enhance biotechnology research and development capability in the area.

Ebora said the project is funded at P27-million and will run for three years.

The project is already on its second year, including the Sago Biotechnology project.

"The main objective is to (improve) capacity building in Mindanao. Basically, we want to establish a biotechnology lab in UP Mindanao as soon as possible," Ebora said.

"In the field of agro-biotechnology, our production area is in Mindanao so it’s just logical to put up a research station in (the area)," he added.

Ebora disclosed that the first few batches of faculty members in UP Mindanao are originally from UP Los Baños.

He said the DoST is mulling to produce local talent, especially in biotechnology, through the establishment of a well-equipped biotech lab.

The establishment of a biotech laboratory in Mindanao will also shun some researchers’ impression that science and technology manpower is only centered in empirical Manila.

"It’s our effort to reach out (especially since) we have a lot of resources that we can study in Mindanao," he said.

Under the Sago biotechnology project in UP Mindanao, researchers aim to conduct a molecular analysis of sago, particularly sago varieties with good starch yield using tissue culture.

"If we develop products (from sago), we would be able to establish an industry for the natives in Mindanao and it will be a big help for them," Ebora said.

"We want to have a processing industry (using sago) similar to Indonesia and Malaysia," he added.

It was gathered that no sago plantation system currently exists in the country.

Sago plants in the wild are being identified using ground positioning system (GPS) and ground truthing.

The Biotechnology sector has been identified by the Philippine government as a potential export earner, aside from major export earning industries like electronics, autoparts, processed foods, coconut, and marine products