JanFebMar08 UPdate

Yes, even budding scientists can look forward to a hugely successful and rewarding career as internationally renowned scholars and researchers. The 2007 Harvard Scientist of the Year, Dr. Baldomero Olivera showed us how.

The second Distinguished Fellow in the UP Centennial Lecture Series, Olivera shared the travails and triumphs of being a scientist in his talk “From Cone Snail Venom to Drugs: The Scientific Odyssey of a UP Graduate” on January 16 at the UP Film Institute.

As described by the Harvard University Foundation, Olivera’s pioneering research on the toxins produced by conus magus, venomous cone snails found in the Philippines, has “led to a better understanding of the nervous system and the development of new commercial drugs, such as potent painkillers that are administered to patients who do not respond to morphine.”

His scientific journey, which he called a “Philippine story,” was an enthralling and visually stimulating narrative of how his childhood fascination with sea shells led to the development of the breakthrough painkiller now commercially available as Prialt. The drug contains just one of the many venoms present in the conus magus.

“This research was started in the Philippines and continues in the Philippines and I hope in the future, will largely be done in the Philippines,” he said.
According to Olivera, the discovery of new peptides in the future is now possible because of two main reasons: first is the abundance of the conus species in the country and second, the availability of new and cheaper technologies.

The Philippines is the center of marine biodiversity, he said. He estimates that there are about 700 conus species and 12,000 species of turrids or auger snails, each possessing a different set of peptides that do not overlap. This translates to some 50,000 pharmacologically active peptides.
But how do we discover and develop these conus peptides?

“The answer lies not only in conventional biology or chemistry but in the combination of disciplines and genomics, the investigation of genes that encode the peptide through molecular biology,” he said.

Olivera was conferred an honorary Doctor of Science degree for his pioneering research with the neurotoxins produced by venomous cone snails. Furthermore, it is also a recognition of his “being an excellent mentor and collaborator of young scientists, allowing them to work directly on advanced problems thus accelerating their technical training and developing their self-confidence at a crucial stage in their careers.”

Olivera earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, summa cum laude, from UP in 1960 and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California in 1966. He finished a post-doctorate in Biochemistry in Stanford University in Palo Alto, California in 1968.

He returned to the Philippines in 1968 and served as Research Associate Professor of Biochemistry at the UP Manila College of Medicine from 1968 to 1970. He became Professor of Biology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City where together with UP professor of biochemistry Dr. Lourdes J. Cruz, he and his team studied the complex neurotoxins produced by venomous snails.

You too can do it!