ABOUT THE COURSE
“Biotechnology for Everyone” is a four-week basic biotechnology course designed for educators specifically College Teachers, Senior High School and Junior High School Faculty.
PSBMB in partnership with Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines (BCP) and Department of Agriculture Biotech (DA Biotech) is now offering Series 2 of Biotechnology for Everyone on January 30 to February 2023.
Moreover, the course includes the topics: Basic Biotechnology, Applications of Biotechnology, Biotechnology Issues and Concerns, and Biotechnology Regulation. The weekly delivery of learning materials is asynchronous with an hour of synchronous sessions available at the end of each learning week.
HISTORY
During the 1900s–2000s, the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), and the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST-PHL) with the private sector and professional organizations held seminars, fora, workshops for various stakeholders--- general public, legislators, farmers, educators, regulators etc. to educate the target audiences on the science, biosafety issues and concerns, and the regulations that are in place in the country involving modern biotechnology.
In 2004, Bioteknolohiya! Exhibit at NAST-PHL Philippine Science Heritage Center (PSHC) was inaugurated, and in 2005-2007 seminar workshops on biotechnology for high school teachers were regularly conducted at NAST- PHL PSHC. The resource persons in these seminar-workshops were mostly of the Philippine Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PSBMB) officers/members.
The UP Diliman MBB faculty also conducted training workshops for college teachers through the leadership of Prof. Cynthia T. Hedreyda.
In 2012- the BS Agricultural Biotechnology Program of the College of Agriculture and Food Science, University of the Philippines Los Baños started seminar workshop for high school teachers sponsored by the grant from the Commission on Higher Education Grant “Cutting Edge Technology/Science (CET/S): Agricultural Biotechnology”. The then Crop Science Cluster and the SEARCA Biotechnology Information Center co-sponsored this activity.
From 2013-early 2015, under the NAST-PHL Biotech IEC project funded by DOST, the biotechnology information drive was intensified and extended to the government employees especially those serving in the science and technology, and local government agencies. A team of regional Biotechnology Focal Persons, most of whom are PSBMB members, were trained in 2013 to expand the Biotech IEC to the different provinces of the Philippines in Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao.
Today, the Philippine Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PSBMB), is offering this free online training course to continue the Biotech IEC among high school and college science teachers, and most importantly, to reinforce their knowledge on biotechnology and capacitate them to teach biotechnology based on scientific evidences. This is of significance as the continuing rapid developments in modern biotechnology has tremendously shaped the way we deal with global needs in food, health and industry. We have especially seen its significant role in addressing COVID-19 from testing/diagnostics to the development of vaccines and other medicines used during this pandemic. Thus, a clear and deeper understanding of modern biotechnology among the high school teachers is necessary for the transfer of science-based information to their students.
Under the guidance of Acad. Evelyn Mae Tecson-Mendoza, an expert team of resource persons who are mostly members of the original Core Biotech Trainers of the DOST project and are officers of PSBMB is formed to develop this training course and uphold its objectives.
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