The Philippine Council for Health Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (PCHRD-DOST) encourages researchers from public and private institutions to submit health R&D proposals for possible funding.

Proposals to be submitted should be aligned with the research priorities of PCHRD, specifically health technology development part of the National Unified Health Research Agenda (NUHRA), 2011-2016. These include drug discovery and development, development of diagnostic kits for priority diseases, genomics and molecular technology, functional foods, hospital equipment and biomedical devices, information and communication technology (ICT) in health, and chronobiology.

Drug discovery include studies on natural substances from herbal, marine and other terrestrial sources for potential drug applications in the treatment of common infectious diseases and other lifestyle-related disorders.

Researches on the development of diagnostic kits include the production of diagnostic tests for priority infectious and lifestyle-related diseases. Priority diseases are dengue and dengue-like illnesses, drug-resistant malaria, drug resistant tuberculosis, influenza-like illnesses, leptospirosis and sepsis for infectious diseases and myocardial infarction, colorectal cancer, stroke, diabetes mellitus, and breast cancer for non-infectious diseases.

Studies on genomics and molecular technology focus on the utilization and application of information in the human genome in the design and discovery of vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostic devices and products.

Studies on functional foods cover researches on the health benefits and safety assessment of food or food components which aim to reduce the risks of disease occurrence, specifically for lifestyle-related diseases such as cardiovascular diseases (CVD), diabetes, and cancer.

Researches on hospital equipment and biomedical devices focus on the development of affordable, safe and reliable hospital equipment and biomedical devices for diagnosis, therapy and surgery, which can be mass-manufactured locally. These include ventilators or respirators, operating room (OR) lights, anesthesia machines, prosthesis, minimally invasive surgical equipment and instruments and rehabilitation equipment.

ICT in health studies involve the development of user-friendly ICT solutions to accelerate the gathering and processing of health and related information for policy making and delivery of quality healthcare services. ICT on health topics may include public health surveillance or health intelligence systems, telehealth services, interface for ICT-enabled medical devices and ICT-enabled services.

Chronobiology researches look into the alleged health related risks of shift-works among shift-workers. Chronobiology came to public awareness because of the increasing call center and business process outsourcing (BPO) industries in the country that employs thousands of Filipino workers.

Proposals will be evaluated according to their technical merit, data management, relevance/significance, marketability potentials for product-based research, feasibility and the proponent’s institutional capacity.