The University of the Philippines (UP) Manila upgraded its Drugs of Abuse Research Laboratory (DARL) with the support of Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to help the government address drug abuse issues in the country.
The DARL at UP Manila College of Pharmacy now utilizes state-of-the-art equipment, to identify a wider class of drug compounds, including new party drugs in real time to enhance the illegal drug testing of law enforcement agencies.
Through the CHED Philippine-California Advanced Research Institutes (CHED-PCARI) program, the Commission gave ₱160,632,193.76 million to fund the capacity-building and procurement of equipment for the UP DARL.
CHED stated that they invested a total of ₱112,608,000 million for the provision of various equipment that will help in identifying drug abuse including new psychoactive substances.
The laboratory is capable of identifying 110 types of drug compounds compared to available test kits that can only identify 10 types of drugs, and reduce the waiting time for test results from weeks to a day.
The laboratory utilizes Liquid Chromatography-Quadrupole Time-of-flight Mass Spectrometry (LC-QTOF/MS) to analyze new designer drugs in the hair and point-of-care (POCT) device for testing presence of selected new psychoactive substances through urine samples.
On Tuesday, CHED Secretary J. Prospero de Vera III with UP Manila Chancellor Michael Tee, unveiled the marker of the UP DARL and checked the new device provided to the university.
“CHED recognized the expertise of UP Manila in chemical and health sciences and we want this expertise to be at the service of the government. The UP DARL will provide information to help the government better address the drug problem in the country, taking into consideration a public health and human rights approach to the issue,” De Vera said.
The active collaboration of UP DARL with health agencies, clinical, and forensics toxicologists, and addiction medicine doctors aims to significantly help in managing existing drug abuse cases.
“This is an example of the expertise of the academe at the service of the government. Like what I have been constantly reiterating during my speeches in UP, UP can only and truly realize its mandate as a national university and prove its reputation as the top university in the country if it’s willing to translate their intelligence, skills, and excellence to concrete action that will help the government make a transformative impact on the lives of the Filipino people,” De Vera said.
