Young Asian Biotechnologist Prize 2021 – About the Winner
Rodney H. Perez
Affiliation:
National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BIOTECH), University of the Philippines Los Baños
Research title for the award:
Multiple bacteriocin production and the novel circular bacteriocin of newly isolated lactic acid bacteria
Dr. Rodney H. Perez received his Ph.D. in 2014 at the Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyushu University, Japan, wherein he worked on the elucidation of the biosynthetic mechanism of bacteriocins from different lactic acid bacterial strains. He was an International Postdoctoral Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) from 2017-2019. During that time, he worked on the bioengineering of bacteriocins to enhance their bioactivity as an alternative arsenal against multi-drug resistant pathogens.
Currently, Dr. Rodney H. Perez is a senior researcher at the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BIOTECH) at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB). His current research interests are focused on lactic acid bacteria, antimicrobial peptides, probiotics and nutraceuticals.
[Message as a prize winner]
It is a great honor for me to be the recipient of this year’s Young Asian Biotechnologist Prize by the Society for Biotechnology, Japan (SBJ). This prestigious award will surely inspire and motivate me to continue working hard in developing my research on bacteriocins and lactic acid bacteria until it can have more meaningful and significant impact on our society. I hope that this award will create more opportunities for collaboration with many excellent researchers in Japan through the SBJ. And lastly, I would like to thank my former mentors at Kyushu University, Prof. Sonomoto, Prof. Nakayama, and Assoc. Prof. Zendo, as well as to all my colleagues at BIOTECH-UPLB. I would have not reached this new milestone in my career without them.
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