A yeast-based oral vaccine against COVID-19 receives funding from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). Herein labeled as an ambitious research and Development (R & D) project, will be bankrolled by DOST through through the Philippine Council for health Research and Development, with a total budget of P4.4-million.

The R & D project conceptualized by the University of Santo Tomas-based (UST) research team on COVID vaccine will be headed by Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, an active priest-scientist, who returned to the Philippines under the DOST Balik-Scientist program. He is a visiting professor and teaches biological sciences subjects at the UST Graduate School.

In a capsule, the DOST-funded ‘ambitious R & D project “. . . seeks to tap Saccharomyces boulardii, a probiotice yeast that has already been approved for human consumption worldwide, as a vaccine delivery system mean to induce a person’s immune response.” According, the yeast S. boulardii is inexpensive and will translate into significant savings for the project and the country as a whole.

This UST-led R & D project aims “to develop an inexpensive vaccine that is shelf-stable at room temperature for easy storage and orally self-administered without the use of needles, syringe or health-care workers.” Further, the research team shall explore oral vaccine candidates’ efficacy using animals as models. Finally, results of the project could serve as reference in developing vaccines for other infectious diseases entering or are already in the country.

MY COMMENT:
This oral vaccine project may have come in late in the day, but I strongly support for its sustained funding. Who knows that the Philippines could be focal country for a ‘revolutionized vaccination program’ of the world and supplier of future COVID -19 oral vaccines!
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Stubbornness is a trait that is commonplace even among high ranking government officials who are charged with policymaking and law enforcement functions. The tendency to be uncaring is manifest in the passivity of these officials to formulate policies and enforce laws for the safety and welfare of the people. The desire to act only crops up when dire things happen due to the inaction beforehand.

Most politicians act to promote their own interests of holding into power than attend to basic needs of the people. Significant things needing legislation are set aside if the same is perceived by the politician as a minor thing in terms of promoting his political career. Action would always be an afterthought in response to bad occurrences that could have been prevented in the first place.

We have seen the dangers of structures built for commercial gains. Most of these structures are found in urban centers where stiff business competition is prevailing. Big companies plunge into the market with a bombardment of commercial advertisements for their products. These big companies are out to grab every available space to promote their products. It was begun by business companies utilizing blank walls of tall buildings for their advertisements.

Lacking enough buildings that could accommodate such purpose, advertisers started erecting frames to hold their large billboards. Some of these structures are erected on top of tall buildings in order to ensure that the advertisements would be visible to their target market. In some instances, such structures are erected solely for the purpose of advertising along highways and roads where most people pass.

It is unclear if these structures are given approval by building officials. The great possibility is that these steel structures are erected without the necessary building permit. The fact that they keep on mushrooming in various places is an indication that such are not being covered by the laws and regulations under the National Building Code.

Without passing through regulations, there is no way the erections are checked if the same are structurally sound to ensure public safety. We only realize that such erections are structurally defective when we see them collapse under the forces of nature like typhoons. In these times where typhoons and super typhoons are passing through our archipelago in succession, the dangers to life and property is truly real. The collapse had caused many deaths that could have been prevented had government bothered to regulate such deadly erections.
comments to alellema@yahoo.com

THE Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, celebrated on August 6, reminds us that like Christ, we are meant to be transfigured to a supernatural life with God in heaven for all eternity. While here on earth, it behooves us to be always conscious of this truth of our faith, and to develop a sense of the sublime and the supernatural amid the varying conditions of our earthly life.

That we are meant to a supernatural life is based on the fact that we have been created in God’s image and likeness. How God is, as revealed fully to us in Christ and made abidingly present in us in the Holy Spirit, is how we ought to be. We should just rev up our faith and overcome whatever disbelief or awkwardness we may have with regard to this truth of our faith about ourselves.

To be sure, having a strong and deep sense of the sublime and the supernatural in our life would keep us confident, serene, hopeful despite the drama of our life here on earth which can be quite heavy. It is our way of connecting us with God’s will and ways which can handle anything that can happen in our earthly sojourn.

We should not forget that we are meant for a supernatural life. Our human nature, with our spiritual soul that enables us to know and to love, and therefore to enter into the lives not only of others but also and most importantly, of God, urges us to develop a supernatural life.

It’s a life with God always. It just cannot be exclusively our own life, taken personally or collectively. It’s a life that depends mainly on God who gives us the grace that purifies and elevates it to his life, but it also depends on us, on our freedom to correspond to this loving will of God for us.

We have to develop a taste and even an appetite for the supernatural life with God and of things supernatural in general. In this we have to help one another, because in the end, this is our common ultimate end in life—how to live our life with God, how we can be immersed in God even as we are immersed also in the things of the world.

It’s always good that we develop and keep a sense of the sublime. After all, if we are truly consistent to our Christian faith, we know that we are meant to be God’s image and likeness, children of his, meant to share in his very own life in heaven. Ours is a dignity like no other.

And we should always be aware of it, irrespective of how our life here on earth goes. We are not meant for a dark, sad life, full of suffering only. We are meant for a sublime life with God.

To be sure, developing this sense of the sublime is not a baseless and gratuitous exercise. It is what God wants us to have, since we truly are children of his. It is not our invention. It is, first of all, his will for us to which we have to correspond.

We should not feel uneasy about this truth, because on the part of God, he will do everything to make what he wants of us to be fully realized. All we have to do is simply to go along with his will and ways as far as we can.