The first centennial celebration-related activity I've attended after the kick-off was Dr. Baldomero Olivera's lecture and conferment. It was the second of the Centennial Lecture Series that will be feature different personalities in the academe all year round.
The 2007 Harvard Foundation Scientist of the Year’s lecture was one I couldn’t let pass. His achievements were so inspiring: a summa cum laude graduate of BS Chemistry in UP Diliman, he earned his PhD in Biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology and post-doctorate in the same area in Stanford University.
Dr. Olivera’s is a distinguished professor of Biology and a Neuroscientist at the University of Utah. He is known for his contributions in Biology, most notably for his discovery of a family of biomolecules called conotoxins (he named some of the conotoxins/peptides after Filipino terms like con-antukin and con-tulakin.
In his lecture, he focused on his and his groups’ latest studies on drug candidates, including a cone snail toxin whose synthetic from is currently being used as an alternative to morphine (the drug’s name is Prialt). He also shared his experiences when he was starting his research on snails which were native in the Philippines. He confessed that even though he had succeeded in his research, it was a sad thing that he was able to do it in another country and not in his own. Dr. Olivera wished that someday, the Philippines would be able to help its researchers and fund the researchers which he believes would remove the country away from the poverty it is currently in.
The inspiring scientist left a lesson for his audience in his lecture: keep your eyes open because you may find something more interesting than what you’re originally looking for.
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