UP Mindanao gets biotech facility

A research project aiming to reduce the production costs of ethanol has gotten a boost from the Philippine government. The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the University of the Philippines’ Mindanao campus (UPMin) launched in May the DOST-UPMin Biotechnology Facility at the university’s College of Science and Mathematics in Davao City. Propelled by a Php23 million (US$477,020) grant, the facility, UPMin officials said, will do much to help along a project by local researchers which will focus on using indigenous resources, such as nipa palm and other forest species, in making industrial lactic acid and ethanol, among others. The researchers had earlier studied using sago palm as raw material for industrial products, which media reports said has led to palm becoming a major income generator in Mindanao. (May 31, 2009)