Olah’s Story: On Life and Career

Olah with her family and Dr. T. Hodges, her mentor while pursuing her PhD at Purdue University.

After nearly six years in the US, we came back home – that totally shocked a lot of our friends who thought that since my two siblings were there as well as my mother, we would be settling there for good. The nationalism instilled by being a Christian and a Varron was still with me, which made me turn-down two postdoctoral positions.

I re-joined PhilRice as a Supervising Science Research Specialist and in two years was promoted to Chief Science Research Specialist. I started to build the PhilRice biotechnology capacity and worked on the improvement of rice with resistance to pests and diseases through genetic engineering. I was designated Biotechnology Coordinator in 2000, providing direction on the various biotech researches, overseeing the smooth implementation of the projects, recommending staff development plans, writing and consolidating proposals to source-out funds from national and international funding agencies, building the biotech capacity, facilities and manpower; and representing PhilRice in biotechnology fora.

In September 2002, after a seven-year stint at PhiRice, I was ready for a postdoctoral research or a sabbatical leave. I presented a poster in an international meeting in Beijing and met Prof. Peter Beyer, one of the inventors of the Golden Rice (Vitamin A rice). He gave an excellent presentation on Golden Rice, which interested me very much because we also had similar research at PhilRice. Dr. Beyer and I discussed postdoctoral possibilities and told me that they were looking for a scientist with my expertise to establish a rice transformation lab at the University of Freiburg, Germany. So in June the following year, my husband and I flew to Germany leaving my two girls who were already university students in UPLB. As usual, I was at home with laboratory work, enriching the nutritional quality of rice through transgenesis. My husband was my greenhouse manager and sometimes my free lab (and love) assistant.

After two and a half years in Freiburg, I was back at PhilRice, taking back my old position and designation. I brought home a Bill and Melinda Gates fund worth $800 thousand which helped me to conduct another round of biotechnology capacity building and the strengthening of the research on Golden Rice. I continued my researches and produced promising transgenic lines which can be further evaluated in the field for the expression of introduced pest and disease resistance genes.

At PhilRice, I was again in the midst of colleagues and friends who were sacrificing a lot for the sake of rice research in the country with low compensation….lower than the administrative personnel (sucks). I started to revive the DOST Magna Carta application of PhilRice. I led the committee who worked hard for nearly a year in putting all the requirements until its submission and approval. I hope that the PhilRice administration will finally relent and give the researchers what is due to them.

I left PhilRice in July 2007 with a heavy heart and a big debt: financially and morally.