Dr. Petroey Pascual of CTU Barili brought soil samples from Argao, Alcoy and Moalboal earlier today for DNA extraction at the University of San Carlos, preparing them for next generation sequencing at Thailand’s National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC) in June this year.
Culture-independent metagenomic approach and next generation sequencing are central to Dr. Pascual’s study to analyze bacterial and fungal diversity in the environment and access genetic pools encoding enzymes, metabolic pathways and genetic elements.
DNA sequencing will be performed by Dr. Pascual himself with Dr. Rosalyn Alburo of CTU Argao and some scientists at the Enzyme Technology Laboratory, as both professors are set to travel for Thailand in the later part of May.
The BIOTEC Team came to Cebu last year for initial collection of soil samples at Balay sa Agta Cave in Argao, Ma-angso Cave in Alcoy and Busay Cave in Moaboal after agreement between CTU and BIOTEC on metagenomics research was signed on July 7,2016.
CTU Barili and CTU Argao jointly promote metagenomics, a study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental samples. Dr. Pascual’s statement in an interview this morning hinted at the involvement of some students in the undergraduate and graduate levels in their upcoming trips to BIOTEC facility. UPO
