Brief Biography:
Dr. Penecilla started research on medicinal plants in the late 70s as a research assistant of the Philippine National Herbarium, National Museim of the Philippines where he studied bryophytes and finished MS in Botany at the University of Santo Tomas. This catapulted him to the world of pharmaceutical sciences when he later joined the medical research team at West Visayas State Univeristy with several pharmacist mentors. Dr. Penecilla worked on more than a hundred researches on medicinal plants with concentration on antimicrobials. Dr. Penecilla studied post graduate at the University of Georgia Department of Botany and became interested in biochemical systematics under Dr. David Giannasi. He had also good training in monoclonal antibodies and isozyme technology as a tool in taxonomic research. He camce back to the Philippines and earned his doctoral degree and later came back to the US Virgnia Tech Post docotrate under the distinguished professor David GI Kingston on the natural products chemistry of anticancer compounds.
Dr. Penecilla work on the anticancer potential of Philippine plants used by herbolarios and verified two speices with the greatest potential against colon cancer. This also led him to verify the importance of Plumeria against fungal infections as well as Terminalia catappa against bacterial infections. currently he is working on medicinal plants against MDR TB.
Academic positions:
Professor 6, West Visayas State University
Associate Research Director
Research interests:
Medicinal plants against microbial infections
Medicinal Plants against MDR TB
Plants against cancer
Any other information:
2007 Research Achievement in Pharmaceutical Sciences, National Research Council of the Philippines
Project Leader, Green Technology Business Incubation Facility
What I think of the idea behind WebmedCentral:
This is a very good avenue for exchange of ideas and insights as well as to develop each othr competence in one's field of interest.
Home Page:
wvsu.edu.ph