Biology student looks for cure for RP coconut disease

MANILA, Philippines - A young biology student from the Ateneo de Manila University has launched a study to search for a cure for cadang-cadang, an infectious viral disease of the coconut palm that is responsible for $30 million in economic losses annually for the Philippine coconut industry.

Stephen Michael Co said his study, entitled “Design and Construction of a Synthetic Coconut Cadang-Cadang Viroid cDNA,” hopes to address the 75-year-old disease that is endemic to the Philippines.

Cadang-cadang is a disease that causes the yellow-bronzing and broom-like appearance of coconut leaves as well as stunted plant growth.

“Our buko is banned in several countries because they fear that the viroid will affect human health. But there are no reported cases about that,” Co said, adding there is no known cure for cadang-cadang because the mechanism of infection is not known.

Co said he designed a synthetic form of the viroid that could be used for further experiments.

“Due to quarantine reasons, we cannot take out the live form of the viroid from Bicol,” he said.

Co said the Philippines contributes about 59 percent of world coconut exports and about 25 million Filipinos depend on the coconut industry.

According to reports, the cadang-cadang disease occurs in the central and eastern parts of the country and affects approximately 500,000 hectares of coconut trees.

“We are only in our first phase of research and we just assembled the synthetic viroid. We have not done further testing,” Co said.

Co’s study won first runner-up in this year’s Bank of the Philippine Islands-Department of Science and Technology’ s “Best Project of the Year Awards.”

Now on its 20th year, the BPI-DOST award aims to recognize and provide incentives to graduating students in selected colleges/universities who excel in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, Computer Science and Biology.

Mikhail Solon, a fourth year B.S. Physics student from the University of the Philippines-Diliman, won the “Best Project Award” for his research entitled, “Analysis of Selected Non-linear and Non-local    Systems.”

Marvin Masalunga, also from UP-Diliman, was third runner up for his project on the genetic diversity of micro-organisms that cause commonly overlooked sexually transmitted diseases. — Helen M. Flores