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Meeting of Asian bioresource centers held in PH for first time

For the first time, the Philippines hosted the annual meeting of the Asian Network of Research Resource Centers (ANRRC) -- an event alternately hosted by the three founding countries, South Korea, Japan, and China.

The ANRRC is a network of biological resource centers (BRCs), which are repositories of plant, animal, and microbial species. They currently have members from 16 countries and 112 institutions in Asia. Since its founding in 2009, ANRRC holds international meetings and conferences to gather BRCs to share knowledge and opportunities on the preservation, conservation, and utilization of research resources.

For this year, the UPLB Museum of Natural History served as the host institution of the 11th International Meeting of ANRRC held from 16-18 October 2019 at SEARCA in the University of the Philippines Los Banos, Laguna.

The meeting consisted of plenary lectures, scientific sessions, and poster presentations aligned with the theme "Bioresource Centers (BRCs): Infrastructure for Biodiversity Conservation, Biotechnology and Biomedicine". It was attended by (approximate or final number) delegates from China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Canada, Australia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

During the simultaneous scientific sessions, delegates presented their research papers on plant, animal, and microbial resources; laws and regulations concerning biodiversity, biotechnology; and biobanking. The Filipino researchers who presented their oral and poster papers came from UPLB, UP Diliman, UP Manila, UP Baguio, De La Salle University-Dasmariñas, Far Eastern University, Mindanao State University, Western Philippines University, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Center for Natural Science and Environment Research De La Salle University, and ASEAN Center for Biodiversity.

In her written message, ANRRC 2019 Organizing Committee Chair Maria Auxilia Siringan hopes that the research partnerships built among the members will continue in this year's meeting.