August 9, 2022 — Dr. Nelia Cortes-Maramba, Professor Emeritus of the UP College of Medicine and founding member of the National Integrated Research Program on Medicinal Plants (NIRPROMP) was conferred the Scientific Inventions, Discoveries & Innovations (SIDI) Awards’ Scientific Inventions Category on June 21.
The SIDI Awards is a joint project of the Rotary Club of Manila, Department of Science and Technology, and Intellectual Property Office Philippines that aims to recognize and provide incentives to Filipino scientists and inventors.
Dr. Maramba was nominated by NIRPROMP’s long-time collaborator, Pascual Laboratories, the first pharmaceutical company to commercialize herbal medicines such as lagundi and sambong that are products of the researches of NIRPROMP.
Considered the “Mother of Philippine Herbal Medicine,” Dr. Maramba’s award was another recognition for the Philippine herbal industry that she had nurtured and supported through numerous researches, publications, and other scientific work.
For her immense contributions to alternative and herbal medicine and the Philippine herbal industry, it comes as no surprise that Dr. Maramba won in the Scientific Inventions category of the SIDI Awards. She received a trophy and P100,000 but, more importantly, has brought the burgeoning industry of phytomedicine into renewed focus.
NIRPROMP started in 1977 and since then has been conducting researches on herbal medicines; the resulting technologies of which have led to their commercialization into treatments for common ailments. Among these are lagundi for cough, sambong for, diarrhea and urinary tract infections, and ulasimang bato for gout and hyperuricemia.
NIRPROMP has led to the creation of the Institute of Herbal Medicine, one of the 10 component institutes of the UP Manila National Institutes of Health. With reports from https://www.philstar.com/lifestyle/health-and-family/2012/07/17/828445/mother-philippine-herbal-medicine-wins-sidi-award
