PIPAC: CHEMISTRY WORKS FOR INDUSTRY
By Ching Sales and Fran Ng
Today, August 31, 1999, Earth and Science Section

Pan de sal, the bread Filipinos usually have for breakfast, was once the cause of mass poisoning in a community in Palawan. The baker had made the bread in exactly the same way he had been making it for years. The flour was as white and shiny as ever. Nodbody could explain how poison got into the bread until a sample of the flour was sent to the Philippine Institute of Pure and Applied Chemistry (PIPAC) laboratory in Manila for analysis.

Pipac executive director Modesto Chua remembers the case although it happened more than two decades ago. "We noticed that the sack containing the flour was stained. Chemical nalysis revealed that the stain came from a pesticide. It turned out that the sacks of flour
had been sent from Manila to Palawan with a shipment of pesticides in the same cargo hold. Some of the containers must have leaked and the pesticide seeped into the sack of flour," says Chua.

While Pipac chemists do not often play detective, their daily routine involves sleuthing and problem-solving, "We check retin-A in facial cream; vitamin A and C in ketchup and tetra-pack juices; cholesterol in corned beef; crude fat and protein in chicharon and chicken
nuggets; mercury, which makes fish toxic, in canned or fresh tuna," says Thema Parrenas, a Pipac chemist.

"Sometimes companies want to contest their competitor's claims. Pipac verifies product claims," Parrenas explains. "While some companies have their own quality control laboratories, they still send samples to Pipac for a second opinion." The fact that clients like lo compare their test results with Pipac's emphasizes the credibility of the lnstitute.

"A client from Parañaque iold me that he would rather go all the way to Pipac [in Quezon City] than go to another laboratory, even if it were nearer his place," Parrenas related.

"Some important drug materials have been found to be wrongly labeled," remarked Chua. "ln such cases, the chemists at Pipac use their high-tech infrared spectrophotometer to "fingerprint" a sample equivalent. Chemical analysis is a big step in ascertaining the quality and integrity of drugs, particularly the life-saving ones."

Chua stresses the need for constantly evaluating and monitoring medicine on the shelves of drugstores. "The consumer has no way of telling whether a given capsule contains the correct active ingredient in the correct amount." he maintained. "Ideally, the government and the drug industry itself should be monitoring drug quality."

Pipac's product endorsement is worth much more than thousands of pesos of advertisements featuring megastars. Its seal of approval is a guarantee of quality and an assurance of money wisely spent.

The institute is located in a modem facility on the verdant campus of the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City. Pipac, as it is more commonly known, is a name that has become synonymous with competence and trustworthiness in the field of industrial chemistry.

From the road, students could see through the glass panels the three-level stairway no one ever seems to climb. The sunlit windows, high ceilings and naturally ventilated rooms reflect the careful planning that went into the construction of the building.

Behind the unpretentious facade is probably one of the most sophisticated analytical laboratories in the country, where a team of skilled chemists works with quiet, matter-of-fact efficiency. Here they do unusal tests, sch as cooking corn flakes in high-temperature ovens, turning the flakes into ash, injecting liquids through an ordinary syringe into the metal pinhole of a high-tech equipment; and working in the dark to analyze light-sensitive vitamin A.

Chua was the valedictorian of high school class 1953 of the Ateneo de Manila University. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, major in philosophy, magna cum laude, from the Ateneo in 1957. After taking a crash course in German, he left to take up chemistry studies at the University of Bonn in Germany.

"In Bonn, I noticed the strong links between universities and industry," Chua observed. "I came home convinced that we should do the same. Research should be emphasized in the university."

Chua received his diplom-chemiker in 1962 and Ph.D., major in physical organic chemistry, magna cum laude, in 1964 from the University of Bonn.

When Chua joined the Ateneo de Manila University department of chemistry in 1965, he was struck by the large number of product test referrals the department was getting from govemment agencies and industrial companies. Soon the faculty found itself acting as consultant on a wide range of chemistry-related problems, ranging from product quality
control, raw material research and by-product utilization, pollution monitoring and control, to personnel training.

Back then then, local industry did not have a strong staff of scientisis to monitor product development and quality. Yet, at least two universities had top-notch chemistry departments," recalled Chua. He began to dream of setting up a science institute that wiykd specialize in the provision of chemistry-related services to industrial operations.

In the 50's and 60's, when so many bright, young Filipino scientists were leaving the Philippines to work and train in developed countries, Chua chose to stay, determined to pursue his growing conviction that his pioneering scheme would fit into the nation's development program.

In 1967, he returned to Bonn for a year of postdoctoral research as a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. While in Germany, he started looking for social and financial support for his envisioned institute.

A year later, Chua was back at the Ateneo, teaching and brainstorming with fellow faculty members in the chemistry department. The entire faculty agreed that the proposed institute should be independent of, yet closely associated, with the university. The task challenged the professors' commitment and resourcefulness. But what they lacked in financial means they made up for in ingenuity and faith in their vision.

In 1972, Professor Rudolph Tschesche of Bonn University, with whom Chua had trained as a research associate, visited the Ateneo. In the same year, Chua approached the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, armed with a feasibility study. Shortly after, the chemistry department received a donation of major chemical equipment from the foundation, through Germany's Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation.

Pipac was founded by the Ateneo facultry of chemistry as a nonstock, nonprofic corporation in late 1972. The institute began operating in a rented room and a small laboratory at the chemistry building.

Meanwhile, the Atneo donated a hectare of land within the campus as the future site of the institute. In 1982, Japan's long-awaited financial pledge, channeled through the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry, enabled Pipac to start constructing its own facility, leading to the building's inauguration in 1984.

In the decades since, Pipac has touched vital facets of national life. Government, business, industry, food, agriculture, medicine, health, environment, energy, education have availed of Pipac's expertise and experience in production and quality control systems--Chua's strong cards actually. Today hundreds of industrial and business finns. pharmaceutical companies and scientific organizations in the country rely on Pipac's quiet and credible technical support.

What has made practically every major corporation in the Philippines come to Pipac? Chua claims that Pipac maintains an international level of excellence and he has documents to prove his claim. During an interview, he unrolled a long sheet of paper and laid it on top of
the piles of folders and chemistly textbooks on his office table. The graph on the paper, he explained, indicated the results of one of the international inter-laboratory comparison exercises in which Pipac participated periodically.

"A central group, such as the lnternational Atomic Energy Agency or World Health Organization sends out the same sample--in this case algae--to more than 100 participating laboratories in Europe, the United States and Asia. Each laboratory uses its own melhod of determining the amount of certain chemical components in algae, such as iron, chromium and lead. The central coordinating group collates the data and plots
the findings, so that the participating labortaories can see how far or near they are to the mean," Chua elucidated.

On the sheet marked "Fe [iron] in Algae," about a hundred dots snaked across the graph. "Each dot represents a laboratory's findings of iron in the sample. The dot highlighted in pink represents Pipac's findings--right within the mean!" Chua pointed out. "We've joined 15 to 20 inter-lab tests. These are worldwide, so it keeps morale high when we see that we're in good technical trim."

It comes as no suiprise that Pipac is accredited by ISO-25, the gold standard for competence in analytical chemistry of the International Organization for Standardization. It is accredited as a testing laboratory by the Department of Health, the Bureau of Foods and Drugs, the Bureau of Oroducts Standards of the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority of the Philippines. The Bureau of Customs asks Pipac to determine, not just the contents of a drug, but also its identity.

Chua says that Pipac owes its success to the guidance given by its board of trustees, which is composed of distinguished persons selected from industry, academe and the government.

Pipac majors in analytical chemistry, training programs, research and product development. Good quality control systems, such as Pipac's employ statitical techniques to trace defects to their causes and guide the modification and choice of industrial processes that spell economic success.

Because science works best in the hands of skilled, capable people, a significant part of Pipac's mission involves the training of competent scientists and technicians. Training programs workshops are conducted annually. Participants are taught basic theories, fundamental skills in chemical analysis and quality control, understanding, use and maintenance of instruments, and simple trouble shooting.

Research is the heart of Pipac. Besides contract research, which is undertaken in the strictest confidence for clients, the institute conducts various use-inspired studies under Chua's direction.

A test is being developed to preserve bamboo furniture from molds and insects without the use of pesticides. "Bamboo is an important building material," Chua indicated. "We are looking for a safe way to improve its resistance to molds and termites. We've tried soaking freshly cut bamboo in copper sulfate solution. It's amazing how much liquid the bamboo soaks up."

As industries become more aware of the impact of their activities on their surroundings, Pipac becomes more relevant in the battle to make the products of industrial resourcefulness compatible with the natural environment.

"When we were collaboraling with Globus, a US company, in the early 1980's, we worked with the Philippine National Oil Co. to test coconut oil as a diesel fuel substitute," Chua said. "We test-ran a fuel that was 30-percent coconut oil and 70-percent diesel. We found less smoke and less carbon formation in the cylinders. The fuel we made was renewable and cleaner, but it was more expensive than diesel. Someday, bunker oil may be depleted and the cost factor will cross over."

Pipac is presently setting up a water quality laboratory to detect microorganisms, dissolved chemicals and other contaminants.

For someone who had originally wanted to become a medical doctor, this scientist seems to have found the crossroads where medicine and chemistry converge.

The constant search for new drugs as existing ones become obsolete has prompted Pipac chemists to do experiments in medical science. They are investigating the potential anticancer proper of coconut meal flour in collaboration with the Food and Nutrition Center, the University of the Philippines and the Philippine Coconut Authority.

An attempt is being made to produce essential but expensive drugs whose patents have lapsed. "Dr. Chang, the inventor of an anticancer drug that has been used in the United States, came to the Philippines in 1996," relates Chua. "The patent of this drug lapsed in 1997, which means anyone can produce it. Dr. Chang is interested in collaborating with Pipac in producing a similar medication."

Chua's own studies on the retationship between the structure and properties of molecules contribute to our fundamental knowledge ot these building blocks of matter. Molecular structure-activity correlation research, such as Chua's, is important because it enables
pharmaceutical chemists to design drugs and other substances for specific application.

There is growing interest worldwide in finding new, active substances from plants for medicial use, or as model structures to guide the synthesis of new therapeutic agents. Chua isolates pure substances from plant extracts and determines their structure through sophisticated techniques and instruments. Being extremely rich in diverse plant species and natural products, the Philippines is an ideal place for his studies.

The wonders of chemistry never fails to fascinate the philisopher in Chua. "When I extract materials from the roots or seeds of a medicial plant, then separate the components, I see beautiful crystals appear. Really beautiful," says Chua, his face mirroring the marvel he perceives in the way atoms obey nature when they come together and arrage themselves in the orderly pattern that characterizes crystalline structures.

Notwithstading his extremely busy life, Chua continues to teach chemistry at the Ateneo. "I like helping form minds," he mused. "I teach not just chemistry, but the value of hard work and careful thinking, based on facts." And that is what sound science is about.

In different, uncounted ways, Pipac has influence the Filipino quality of life for the better. There is Modesto Chua, the ulitimate chemist, to thank for that. Behind the institution is the man, whose aspirations have guided its course across a quarter century. In the end we find that the values Pipac has stood for through the years are Chua's, too: integrity, respect for work, professionalism, social conscience, and total dedication to excellence in every endeavor.