College of Science faculty member Prof. Dr. Allan Patrick Macabeo received the new Digital Cooperation Fellowship grant from the Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation (AVHF) in Germany.
An alumnus of the AVHF Georg Forster Postdoctoral Research Fellowship program, Macabeo, who is a researcher affiliated with the Research Center for the Natural and Applied Sciences (RCNAS), will receive as part of the grant 3,000 Euros per month from September 2021 to January 2022 to develop his project titled “Drug discovery of biologically active natural products from Philippine Hypoxylon Species.”
The said project will be a collaboration between UST as the Home Institution and the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Germany, represented by Prof. Dr. Marc Stadler, as Virtual Host Collaborator.
In his study, Macabeo expects to find secondary metabolites with potent antibiotic properties from untapped fungal natural products in the Philippines. This is in response to the rapid development of drug-resistant strains and the resulting need for new chemotherapeutic treatments.
AVHF is a foundation established by the government of Germany. It promotes international academic cooperation between excellent scientists and scholars from Germany and other countries.
Macabeo is a prolific researcher, having published over 40 papers on natural products and synthetic chemistry. A multi-awarded researcher, he was a recipient of the 2015 Outstanding Young Scientist award in Organic Chemistry, the 2015 The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) award in the same field, and the 2013 Merck Young Scientist award. He obtained his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Chemistry degrees from the University of Santo Tomas, and his Doctor of Natural Sciences (Magna cum Laude) degree from the Universität Regensburg – Germany.
