Symposium Summary
Symposium Summary
Some Details on the Mollusk Symbiont Symposium
It’s not everyday you hear a Caucasian woman say ‘lumun-lumun’ with gusto and a thick American accent, and not everyday do we UP students encounter a free event that provides lots of good food for snacks and lunch. These were some of the main highlights of the past symposium (March 5, 2012), the Philippine Mollusk Symbiont Interntional Cooperative Biodiversity Group that was held at the Marine Science Institute. I did not stay the whole day, but I was able to hear the talks of Dr. Flora Katz, Dr. Margo Haygood, Dr. Gisela Concepcion, Dr. Gary Rosenberg, Dr. Eric Schmidt.
Dr. Flora Katz focused on giving a walkthrough on the activities and accomplishments of the ICBG in other countries through her short stories. For instance the Panama ICBG has made progress in discovering new endemic species, leads to highly active anti cancer and anti parasite substances (like the coibamide compound, a highly anti cancer compound), and they have also built a new chemistry and biology research facility in Panama. New research teams have been formed there, and their ambitious goal of having the area (Coiba National Parkand its Special Zone of Protection) certified as a UNESCO world heritage site happened. This, in turn, brought in more tourism and taught the people to love their place and the untouched coral reefs in their seas. This certification came along with the law to protect the Coiba area and to buffer around it. She also shared that a good treaty was done in 1992, which established the Nagoya Protocol, which urged the discovery of ways of providing benefits for countries that owned the biodiversity. The Nagoya Protocol International Fund (NIPF) recently had a project approved for Panama, a project that would have a $4.4M budget ($1M coming from NIPF) and would support the search for nature-based products of interest to the pharmaceutical and agro-chemical industries. Anti cancer compounds and anti
Some Details on the Mollusk Symbiont Symposium
It’s not everyday you hear a Caucasian woman say ‘lumun-lumun’ with gusto and a thick American accent, and not everyday do we UP students encounter a free event that provides lots of good food for snacks and lunch. These were some of the main highlights of the past symposium (March 5, 2012), the Philippine Mollusk Symbiont Interntional Cooperative Biodiversity Group that was held at the Marine Science Institute. I did not stay the whole day, but I was able to hear the talks of Dr. Flora Katz, Dr. Margo Haygood, Dr. Gisela Concepcion, Dr. Gary Rosenberg, Dr. Eric Schmidt.
Dr. Flora Katz focused on giving a walkthrough on the activities and accomplishments of the ICBG in other countries through her short stories. For instance the Panama ICBG has made progress in discovering new endemic species, leads to highly active anti cancer and anti parasite substances (like the coibamide compound, a highly anti cancer compound), and they have also built a new chemistry and biology research facility in Panama. New research teams have been formed there, and their ambitious goal of having the area (Coiba National Parkand its Special Zone of Protection) certified as a UNESCO world heritage site happened. This, in turn, brought in more tourism and taught the people to love their place and the untouched coral reefs in their seas. This certification came along with the law to protect the Coiba area and to buffer around it. She also shared that a good treaty was done in 1992, which established the Nagoya Protocol, which urged the discovery of ways of providing benefits for countries that owned the biodiversity. The Nagoya Protocol International Fund (NIPF) recently had a project approved for Panama, a project that would have a $4.4M budget ($1M coming from NIPF) and would support the search for nature-based products of interest to the pharmaceutical and agro-chemical industries. Anti cancer compounds and anti