Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute of Iran (ABRII) hosted Dr. Rowena Cristina L. Guevara, the Undersecretary for Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Dr. Josette T. Biyo, Director of Science Education Institute, Department of Science and Technology, and Dr. Blessie A. Basilia, the Chief of Materials Science Division, Industrial Technology Development Institute, Department of Science and Technology of Philippines on 13^th April 2019. They were accompanied by Prof. Dr. Ghasem Hosseini Salekdeh, Deputy Director General for Research, to the different departments of the institute and got to know the achievements and the ongoing projects of ABRII.

The delegations went on to acquaint themselves with the activities and achievements of the Cell and Culture Department, especially in the field of double haploid production. Dr. Maryam Jafarkhani Kermani, an associate professor at the department, introduced the research activities on rapeseed, wheat, cucumber, pepper and new projects of sorghum, millet and rice.  She referred to the problems of this method and provided samples and documentation of the successful research activities of ABRII.

Nanotechnology Department was the next section visited by the delegates, in which Dr. Leila Ma’mani, Head of the Nano Biotechnology Department, provided explanations on the research activities and achievements of the researchers on the production of nano-pesticides, nano-fertilizers, seed coating formulations, and on the problems of the agricultural sector which can be solved through nanotechnology. The sector's achievements in the field of seed coating and slow release fertilizers, which may reduce the use of fertilizers and hazardous chemicals while increasing their efficiency. The microscopic section and its various equipment were visited and explanations were given on their applications in nano-biosciences and agricultural research.

Afterwards, the achievements of the Department of Systems Biology such as determining the genetic originality for economically important horticultural crops, like date palm, almond, pomegranate, olive and figs, preparing a genetic map for important fruit traits in almond, settling database for genes in response to environmental stresses for crop plants, sequencing Iranian horse genome and preparing horse parentage genotyping kit using genome-based markers, identifying and producing hydrolysis enzymes as feed supplement for livestock and poultry by rumen metagenome analysis and so on.

Moreover, the fields of activities of the Department of Microbial Biotechnology like isolating, screening, identifying and evaluating potential microorganisms in agricultural industry and microbial culture collection development, bioprocess engineering of microbial biomass and metabolites production with diverse applications in agriculture, animal industry, aquaculture and natural resources, genetic engineering of microorganisms in order to improve the performance of superior strains or production of new biological products and producing microbial products in Lab-scale and pilot plant bioreactors were declared to be of great interest of the delegation.

Dr. Babak Nakhoda, the head of the Physiology Department, introduced the achievements of his group’s department to the guests. Identification of the halophyte Salicornia and the elaboration of a mass propagation protocol, definition of an extraction protocol to obtain pure yellow and red carthamine from safflower, elaboration of an extraction protocol for phycocyanin from the microalgal species Spirolina, identification of fast maturing millet lines showing good yield potential and tolerance to drought and selection of wheat lines expressing superior levels of tolerance to soil salinity and drought were the most prominent subjects expressed.

During the meeting held after the visit to the laboratories, Dr. Rowena expressed the remarkable progress of ABRII in the area of advanced technologies, adding: ABRII has made great progress in various fields of biotechnology and nanotechnology. Philippine is eager to cooperate with Iran and specifically ABRII in fields of agricultural biotechnology and nanotechnology.

Moreover, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the vice president for science and technology affairs of Iran and the minister of science and technology of Philippine to lay the foundation for developing scientific, research and technological cooperation of the two countries in the field of advanced technologies.

Dr. Rowena Cristina L. Guevara is the Undersecretary for Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), on special detail from the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman where she is a Professor of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Guevara holds a BS Electrical Engineering and MSEE degrees from UP Diliman and PhDEE from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her area of specialization is speech and audio signal processing, time-frequency analysis and synthesis.  She served as the first woman Dean of the UP College of Engineering and has been the recipient of several awards in engineering and education, including the Metrobank Foundation Search for Outstanding Teachers of the Philippines. She was the proponent and first program leader of the Engineering R&D for Technology, a consortium for graduate engineering scholarship program of DOST since 2007.