Disease Molecular Biology
and Epigenetics Laboratory

06 July 2025

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Five lab members graduated this weekend. MSc MBB: Paeng Ambag, Kimi Gattoc, and Max Faminiano. BSc MBB: Clarence Bautista and Dan Javier.

 

28 June 2025

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Former thesis students/RAs of the lab currently doing graduate studies / postdoctoral fellowship in the UK and Germany recently co-authored papers in prestigious journals:

Kenneth Anthony Roquid: “Endothelial insulin resistance induced by adrenomedullin mediates obesity-associated diabetes” published in SCIENCE

Joshua Miguel Danac: “CRAMP1 drives linker histone expression to enable Polycomb repression” published in MOLECULAR CELL

Kim Quililan: “Evidence of substrate control of Cdk phosphorylation during the budding yeast cell cycle” published in CELL REPORTS

Arlou Kristina Angeles: “Circulating tumor cell plasticity determines breast cancer therapy resistance via neuregulin 1–HER3 signaling” published in NATURE CANCER

Aileen Uy: “Engineering of extracellular vesicles for efficient intracellular delivery of multimodal therapeutics including genome editors” published in NATURE COMMUNICATIONS

Lorenz Chua: “DNA methylation changes during acute COVID-19 are associated with long-term transcriptional dysregulation in patients’ airway epithelial cells” published in EMBO MOLECULAR MEDICINE

Arman Ali Ghodsinia: “Directed disruption of IL2 aggregation and receptor binding sites produces designer biologics with enhanced specificity and improved production capacity” published in COMPUTATIONAL AND STRUCTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

Arman Ali Ghodsinia: “Cytokine Couture: Designer IL2 Molecules for the Treatment of Disease” published in IMMUNOTARGETS AND THERAPY

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29 May 2025

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Eight current members of the lab were awarded MSc/PhD scholarships and will start their graduate studies abroad  August/September 2025. Kim Denyse Hao Lin was awarded a MS-PhD scholarship at the International Max Planck Research School for Neurosciences in Gottingen, Germany. Kolin Echano was awarded an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master's scholarship under the MemBioMed program. Liz De Guzman and Lance Andrei Esteban were both offered a Master's scholarship at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Lance, however, has decided to accept another offer (MS-PhD) at the International Max Planck Research School for Molecular Biology in Gottingen where Tim Lee also received a similar scholarship. Paeng Ambag and Pao Aguilar both accepted a PhD scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis in the US.  Kim Cabral accepted an Erasmus Mundus MSc (Sustainable Drug Discovery) scholarship.​​

 

29 May 2025

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Several members of the lab were offered competitive summer internships in world-renowned research institutes. Kolin Echano received three separate offers from Dresden (Germany) but had to decline after being offered a master’s scholarship under the Erasmus Mundus program. But Kolin will be doing a 3-month internship at the Vienna BioCenter in Austria from June to August together with Liz de Guzman and Aleq Adrianne Remolisan Andresan. Five other members of the lab will be doing a 2-month summer research internship at the world-renowned Academia Sinica in Taiwan: Janica Ĺìsìnģ, Kim Cabral, John Kyle Torrejos, RJ Francisco,  and Tim Lee. 

 

29 May 2025

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Carmela Cruz and Kenneth Roquid successfully defended their PhD theses at the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Molecular Biology and the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research (both in Germany), respectively.  Paeng Ambag successfully defended his MS MBB thesis today at the NIMBB, UP Diliman.

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16 May 2025

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Josh Danac (currently doing his PhD at the University of Cambridge) was presented the FEBS Letters Best Poster Award at the prestigious EMBL Conference — Chromatin and Epigenetics — held recently in Heidelberg, Germany.

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16 January 2025

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Rey Garcia, the lab's P.I., was appointed Technical Panel Member for Biology, Microbiology, and Molecular Biology by the Commission on Higher Education for the next four years.

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8 January 2025

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Ryan Timothy Yu is co-first author of the paper entitled "Molecular basis of human nuclear and mitochondrial tRNA 3′ processing" published in the journal NATURE STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY.

 

23 December 2024

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Shela Marie L. Algodon (currently in Lubeck) is a co-author of the paper entitled "Clinicodemographic and Genetic Modifier Correlation in an X-Linked Dystonia-Parkinsonism Cohort from Mindanao" published in the journal MOVEMENT DISORDERS CLINICAL PRACTICE.

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17 December 2024

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Kimi Gattoc and Max Faminiano successfully defended their Master's theses.

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28 November 2024

 

RJ Francisco and Tim Lee were declared first and second place winners (respectively) of YOUTH SCIENCE FORUM 2024 during the 51st Annual Convention of the Philippine Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology held at The Marison Hotel, Legazpi City, Albay. As part of their prize, they were awarded a 2-month summer internship in Academia Sinica,Taiwan.

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19 November 2024

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Chuck Bataclan successfully defended his PhD thesis at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

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10 November 2024

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Andrea Salvador (currently a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania) is a co-author of the paper entitled "Endogenous self-peptides guard immune privilege of the central nervous system" published recently in NATURE

 

03 November 2024

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Kenneth Roquid (currently finishing his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, Germany)  is second author of the paper entitled "SPMs exert anti-inflammatory and pro-resolving effects through positive allosteric modulation of the prostaglandin EP4 receptor" published in PNAS.

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Shela Marie L. Algodon (currently finishing her PhD at the University of Lubeck in Germany) is a co-author of the paper entitled "Clinicodemographic and Genetic Modifier Correlation in an X-Linked Dystonia-Parkinsonism Cohort from Mindanao" published in the journal Mov Disord Clin Pract.

 

26 October 2024

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Dan Mirador and RJ Francisco bagged 2 of the 3 Best Poster Presentation Awards at the recently concluded 7th International and 15th National Convention of the Philippine Society for Cell Biology. Dan also emerged as one of the 3 winners of the Rapid Fire Oral Presentations. Kim Cabral won first place in the Photo / Microscopy Contest for her work entitled "Neuro-concinnity".

 

 

12 October 2024

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Our latest paper entitled "Atypical Exon 2/3 Mutants G48C, Q43K, and E37K Present Oncogenic Phenotypes Distinct from Characterized NRAS Variants" is now published online in the journal CELLS.

 

05 October 2024

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Arman Ghodsinia, currently doing his PhD at the University of Cambridge, is a co-author of the paper entitled "Novel immunotherapeutics against LGR5 to target multiple cancer types" published recently in EMBO Mol Med. 

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08 September 2024

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Chuck Bataclan (University of Lausanne) is a co-author of the paper entitled Inducible CXCL12/CXCR4–dependent extramedullary hematopoietic niches in the adrenal gland published in the journal BLOOD.

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)2 August 2024

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Josh Malapit successfully defended his PhD thesis at the German Cancer Research Center / University of Heidelberg.

 

16 July 2024

 

Josh Danac (University of Cambridge) is first author of the paper entitled “Competition between two HUSH complexes orchestrates the immune response to retroelement invasion” published in MOLECULAR CELL. 

Martin Qui (Duke-NUS Medical School) is first author of the article entitled “T cell hybrid immunity against SARS-CoV-2 in children: a longitudinal study" published in eBIOMEDICINE (part of The Lancet Discovery Science). 

Yana Manongdo-Bataclan (Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Switzerland) is first author of the paper entitled “Crosstalk between Regnase-1 and -3 shapes mast cell survival and cytokine expression” published in LIFE SCIENCE ALLIANCE (a joint publication of EMBO Press, Rockefeller University Press, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press). 

Carmela Cruz (International Max Planck Research School for Molecular Biology, Germany) is co-author of the paper “Generation of marmoset primordial germ cell–like cells under chemically defined conditions” published in LIFE SCIENCE ALLIANCE. 

Kenneth Roquid (Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Germany) is co-author of the paper entitled “Loss of Smooth Muscle Tenascin-X Inhibits Vascular Remodeling Through Increased TGF-β Signaling” published in ARTERIOSCLEROSIS, THROMBOSIS, AND VASCULAR BIOLOGY. 

Kent Canlas (Chung-Ang University, South Korea) is first author of the review entitled “Applications of Biomolecular Nanostructures for Anti-Angiogenic Theranostics” published in INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NANOMEDICINE. 
 

13 May 2024

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Jolo Ferrer is a co-author of the paper entitled "Genome organization around nuclear speckles drives mRNA splicing efficiency" published recently in NATURE. Jolo is currently in Caltech doing his PhD. 

 

10 April 2024

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Lorenz Chua is co-first author of the paper entitled "Proteomic and transcriptomic profiling of brainstem, cerebellum and olfactory tissues in early- and late-phase COVID-19" published recently in NATURE NEUROSCIENCE. 

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28 March 2024

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Kimi Gattoc was offered a place in the Taiwan International Internship Program. She will be in Academia Sinica from June to July 2024. 

 

20 March 2024

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Aileen Uy was offered a PhD scholarship at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) in Heidelberg.

 

Dr. Lorenz Chua was selected for a fellowship under the Medical Scientist Pilot Program of the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

 

Joseph Neos Cruz was awarded the highly competitive Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds PhD fellowship in Vienna.

 

Mickai Leaño was chosen for the 2024 Taiwan International Internship Program (July-August Batch).

 

29 February 2024

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Shela Algodon is a co-author of the paper entitled "Neuroenergetic Changes in Patients with X-Linked Dystonia-Parkinsonism and Female Carriers" published in the journal MOVEMENT DISORDERS CLINICAL PRACTICE.

 

17 February 2024

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Andrei David was offered an MSc-PhD scholarship at the International Max Planck Research School for Molecular Biology in Goettingen, Germany, and will move there in September.

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Marian Abigail Manongdo-Bataclan is co-first author of the article entitled "The mRNA methyltransferase Mettl3 modulates cytokine mRNA stability and limits functional responses in mast cells" published in NATURE COMMUNICATIONS. Yana recently finished her PhD at IRB, ETH Zurich. 

 

05 February 2024

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Dr. Rey Garcia was chosen as the 2023 Achievement Awardee of the National Research Council of the Philippines-Division of Medical Sciences.

 

04 February 2024

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Kim Quililan co-first author of the paper "In vitro reconstitution of chromatin domains shows a role for nucleosome positioning in 3D genome organization" published in NATURE GENETICS. Kim is currently doing her PhD at the Francis Crick Institute in London. 

 

Nori Galang is first author of the paper entitled "Vesicular Release and Uptake of Circular LSD1-RNAs from Non-Cancer and Cancer Lung Cells" published recently in the International Journal for Molecular Sciences. Nori is currently doing her PhD at Radboud University in The Netherlands. 

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Kenneth Roquid is co-author of the paper "Large chemokine binding spectrum of human and mouse atypical chemokine receptor GPR182 (ACKR5)" published in Frontiers ni Pharmacology. Kenneth is finishing  up his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Germany.

 

02 February 2024

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Martin Qui successfully defended his PhD thesis (as part of the MD-PhD program) at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. 

 

18 January 2024

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Allen de Borja successfully defended his Master's thesis entitled "Functional characterization of the non-canonical KRAS mutants K117I, K117N, A146T, E168K, and K172T identified in Filipino young-onset colorectal cancer patients".