The Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (DOST-PCHRD) introduced its three new R&D programs under its research grant services during the 2nd day of the DOST-PCHRD 40th Anniversary Main Conference on 18 March 2022. 

One of the flagship services offered by the DOST-PCHRD is its research grant services that provides funding and assistance to Filipino researchers in the conduct of health research. To ensure that the Council invests in projects that solve pressing, real-world problems; it outlines research priority areas with specific topics for each round of call for proposals.

“For forty years, hundreds of health research programs and projects worth billions of investment and funding have been managed by the dynamic team of program heads and project managers, who constantly adapt to the signs of the time through solid management and monitoring of these crucial health researches,” said Mr. Paul Ernest de Leon, Chief Science Research Specialist of the Research and Development Management Division (RDMD) of the DOST-PCHRD.

Responding to the current national health concerns, the Council, through the RDMD, introduced three new priority health research areas namely:

1. Re-emerging and Emerging Diseases
2. Digital and Frontier Technologies for Health, and
3. Nutrition and Food Safety

With the threat of re-emerging and emerging diseases to public health, the Re-emerging and Emerging Diseases (RED) program is an expansion of the DOST-PCHRD’s Dengue and Other Arboviruses program. It supports R&D that generates local and novel technology platforms, therapeutics, preventive measures, surveillance, and control and management protocols for various diseases. The program is intended to equip the country’s health systems with research-based solutions and innovations for better disease management and prevention.

On the other hand, the Digital and Frontier Technologies for Health program builds from the Council’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Health program. To respond to eHealth needs emphasized by the implementation of universal health care (UHC), the updated research program now focuses on R&D utilizing artificial intelligence and other elements of the 4th industrial revolution, connectivity platforms and new fields of digitalization.

Lastly, the Nutrition and Food Safety Program aims to address various malnutrition and food safety issues using science and technology. This research priority area hopes to cover studies on the nutrition of all age groups (pediatric, adolescent, adult, and geriatric), malnutrition and its relation to infectious diseases, use of innovative technologies such as omics for individual diets, fad diets, nutrition for the disabled as well as for athletes or people active in sports, safety of foods sold in the local markets, and tools that can be used to identify and prevent diseases related to food safety.

For updates on the DOST-PCHRD’s year-long 40th Anniversary celebration, visit the DOST-PCHRD website at pchrd.dost.gov.ph, or follow the Council’s official social media accounts at facebook.com/dostpchrd and twitter.com/DOST_PCHRD. To join upcoming activities, register at www.40.pchrd.dost.events.