Attended the launch of Cordlife the other day the UP Ayala Technohub in Quezon City. It’s the Philippines’ first cord blood processing and cryopreservation facility, where clients can have their baby’s umbilical cordblood containing stem cells stored for later use. Cord blood stem cells can help treat more than 80 diseases such as lymphoma and leukemia. Amazing.

CordLife was established in May 2001 as the first private cord blood bank in Singapore and among the first in Asia. CordLife collects, processes and stores cord blood stem cells, which may later become potential source material for life-saving treatments.

Headquartered in Singapore, CordLife owns the largest network of private cord blood banks with facilities in Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, China and the latest facility in the Philippines. It also has marketing offices in Macau and Thailand. CordLife is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange under the symbol, CBB.

As of December 2009, over 25,000 families have entrusted their baby’s cord blood stem cells with CordLife Group.

In the CordLife laboratory at the UP-Ayala Technohub, they can house up to 20,000 cord blood samples. Here the laboratory technician prepares the cord blood for processing.

Cord blood can be collected from the umbilical cord which is usually thrown away following the delivery of the baby. It does not interfere with or obstruct the birthing procedure, and pose no risk to mother or child.

The blood bag is CordLife’s preferred method of cord blood collection, as this method has been proven to provide a simple and straight forward system, while drastically reducing the chance of contamination.

A CordLife qualified representative will retrieve the child’s collected cord blood after birth for processing and cryopreservation at CordLife’s facility

The first transplant using umbilical cord blood was in 1998 for a boy with Fanconi’s Anemia. Since then, approximately 14,000 cord blood transplants have been performed for over 80 different diseases. These transplants are done for the same indications as bone marrow transplants, however with cord blood as an alternative source of stem cells.

The processed cord blood passes through the pass box, directly into the cryopreservation laboratory for freezing down and preservation. The laboratory is equipped with controlled rate freezers that freeze the cord blood unit down gradually, preventing any damage.

The temperature for cryopreservation is kept at below -165°C. The tanks are directly attached to liquid nitrogen supply tanks that automatically top-up liquid nitrogen as needed.

Today there are over 160 private cord blood banks worldwide that cryogenically preserve newborn babies’ cord blood stem cells for parents in case the need arises in the future.

CordLife Medical Philippines, Inc.: Unit 101, Building H, U.P.-AyalaLand Technohub, Commonwealth Ave, Diliman, Quezon City, 1101 Philippines

Guess what I did two weekends ago? Endured a seven-hour ride to La Union up north. We arrived at midnight and even if it was pitch black, the sound of waves was unmistakable. I woke up and saw the waves.

Met with half-Aussie half-Filipino world-champion surfer Luke Landrigan at the San Juan Surf Resort in San Juan, La Union.

The story comes out in Entrepreneur’s March issue. Damn, a few more days and February is over. That was fast.

I’ve been so busy the past week that I completely forgot that my very first contributing writing job for FHM has been out for two weeks already. There is no greater thrill than opening an FHM magazine and seeing your name attached to an article, albeit short, and tame. It’s a definitely a start. I regret them not giving me a story that was more, how should I say it, scandalous.

Still, if I ever find myself shaking hands with someone I am to interview who has the capacity to breastfeed an army of babies with her mammary glands (note my use of politically-correct terms), at the back of my mind will be the scenario of my parents banishing me from home. So right now, I’m thinking of a unique pen name.

Photo to follow.

It’s every child’s dream to jump into a pool of foam. I didn’t get to do it, but the experience I had was close enough.

Together with other people from the press, I was recently invited to visit the 60,00 square-meter factory of Uratex in Muntinlupa City. Uratex is the leading foam manufacturer in the Philippines. They started making foam in 1968 and have since grown and expanded. Today, Uratex’s world-class foam products—from really comfortable mattresses and pillows, to kitchen sponges and car seats—have permeated almost every Filipino home and have thus become a successful local brand.

The plant tour was especially interesting as they showed us how they made foam. It was, in a word, magic.

This is their research and development department. I know this because they’re wearing stereotypical pristine white lab coats. Here they formulate the specific foam mixtures to create specific foam products. I never thought foam was this complicated.

Here they burn the foam to test its flammability (or lack thereof). It’s important because a burning bed or pillow in your house is simply unacceptable. In another station they pull foam apart to test its strength. One girl’s job is to bounce a metal ball all day to test the foam’s “bounciness.” They’re serious about their foam.

After getting the perfect foam formula, they proceed to create the foam. And it all starts out in liquid form. The Hennecke–the foam-making machine they imported from Germany–is the source of everything. Streams of chemicals are sprayed using computer controlled metering pumps on a paper-covered conveyor belt. The smell is awesome, like permanent marker and candy.

As the belt and the paper move along the length of the machine, the liquid spreads and forms into a thin layer. Through an exothermic process, the less than one centimeter of liquid slowly rises as it goes through the machine. And this is the magic part–in less than two minutes all that turns into this…

A warm block of foam about a meter high emerges at the end of the line. It’s already safe to touch, but on the surface it’s still a bit moist.

The foam is then cut into 30-meter blocks for easy handling. At this point the outside of the foam block is already dry, but the inside is still warm and wet. The foam, i mean.

A giant crane then picks up the 30-meter block of foam and lays it down in a warehouse for curing. The foam block sits there for 24 hours until it cools down. After that they proceed to cutting the foam into the specific product it was designed to be. It can become a mattress,  a piece of kitchen sponge, or even the 1mm foam disk you see inside a hard drive. Uratex makes those as well.

Foam! They make bra padding too. So the next time you see a bra, imagine that a worker at Uratex had, at one point, his hands all over your underwear.

My week has been hell: three long stories to finish and the deadline was last week. I’m a rebel. But really, one can never be too busy for YouTube. Awesome ad.

I’ve been doing a fro-yo story for an upcoming issue. Tried them all in a span of two weeks. If you want something sweet that still has that tart yogurt flavor, I’d recommend The White Hat. Plus, it’s a local company.

On Saturday, February 13, 2010, the Ateneo Blue Eagles will team-up with AHON (Acts of Hope for the Nation) Foundation and The White Hat–Italian Frozen Yogurt to show their love towards Filipino public school students. Together, they will raise as much money as they can by selling & serving authentic Italian frozen yogurt at The White Hat’s Shangrila store. TWH has pledged to donate half of the entire day’s sales to AHON Foundation who, in turn will use the money to build more libraries for public schools to raise literacy rates among the poor.

According to AHON Foundation, more than 90% of our students currently study in public schools, but only 10% of the 37,000 public schools have adequate libraries. This is then the mission of AHON, to inspire future leaders of our country by making sure they are literate. AHON has already helped build 30 libraries, the latest one in Pateros (Sto. Rosario Elementary School) which luckily escaped the wrath of typhoon Ondoy.

On the other hand, the Ateneo Blue Eagles have generously agreed to volunteer themselves as guest celebrities in The White Hat’s Celebrity-For-Charity event whereby customers get served the best-tasting frozen yogurt by celebrities. To make the event even more fun, customers who buy yogurt on this day can have souvenir photos taken and even ask the Blue Eagles to autograph memorabilia on the spot.

They must have loved that plane very much.

The Philippine Senate never fails to amuse me. As a background, yesterday, the Senate Committee of the Whole met to discuss a fellow senator’s (Sen. Manny Villar) alleged unethical conduct for “inserting” an additional P200-million in the 2008 national budget. The budget was used for the construction of a road that would pass through his property which thereby hiked up the value of his real estate. Those supporting and against Villar met head-to-head.

This mudslinging is entertaining as it is exasperating. And to think that Sen. Miriam-Defensor Santiago was out sick. That woman can give a soundbite.

Jump to 2:46.

Gloves come off in Senate session

Sen. Roxas: I say no. I had no insertion on any matter. In fact, I have no insertion, period. Because we’re in the minority! Let alone an insertion for a road to pass through any such property.

Sen. Pimentel: Well, well, I am sure that after your marriage, you had some insertions.

Pimentel FTW!

Jay Leno is an old hoot. I hope they release Conan’s seven months on The Tonight Show on DVD. It would be the fifth original DVD I would buy. If Triumph The Insult Comic Dog comes out with one, I’d definitely buy one…to poop on.

Conan’s Final Goodbye and a Look Back

On Conan’s last show last Friday (Saturday in Manila), one of his final guests, Tom Hanks, walked out into the show with the Beatle’s song Lovely Rita being played by The Tonight Show Band. According to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon house band leader Questlove, NBC paid $500,000 to play that song. It’s called royalties, or in this case, sticking it to the man.

“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

Just a year old, Manor Superclub has already gained a cult following in the metro’s party scene, with partyphiles, and until recently, call center agents, entering its glass doors three nights a week, from 10pm to five in the morning. According to Erik Cua, operations director, Manor is “the premiere dance club in the Philippines with three areas where people can go to unwind, meet new people, and dance the night away.”

Launched in January of 2009 from the people behind the metro’s top clubs, Manor Superclub has gained notoriety among the country’s club-hopping and music-loving elite. The conceptualization process took around six months, while the construction of the three main areas, the penthouse, basement, and the terrace, took five months, with each area having its own distinct ambiance and music.

The guys behind Manor did more than just your simple party-planning. “First [was] finding the location we really wanted, then finding the right partners to complement each other,” says Cua. Thanks to Stephen Ku, marketing director, and Bingo Manahan, promotions director, they were also able to choose the right promoters to partner with. Carlo Aquino, Manor’s entertainment director took care of the music. The result was a place deserving of its name.

With its posh interiors, pulsating dance music spun by Manila’s top DJs, as well as a wide selection of cocktails for your enjoyment, it isn’t unusual to see long lines of people snaking around the corner waiting to be let in. According to Cua, Manor’s guests are usually college students, yuppies, industry people, businessmen, as well as models and actors. However, with the recent surge of BPOs in the country, particularly in the Quezon City and Pasig area, they’ve also gained a new client base. “It has actually gotten stronger since some of the call center agencies have held their parties in Manor.”

Open every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night, many call center agents in the area actually choose to go to Manor during their “lunch break” sometime between midnight and 2am to relax and escape from the stress and pressure of work. While they’re service hasn’t changed with the emergence of this new market, the team behind Manor Superclub has begun thinking of ways to bring more of them in. According to Cua, “We give nothing but the best party for call center agents.”

At the end of the day, which in this case, is at six or seven in the morning, all everyone’s looking for is a place to relax with perhaps some booze on the side. And in Manor, it doesn’t matter if it’s during your lunch break.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Manor Superclub
www.manorsuperclub.com
F1 Big Kahuna Bldg., Eastwood Citywalk, Libis, Quezon City
(02) 421-3180, info@manorsuperclub.com

PHOTO CREDIT
Dairy Darilag

***

From Entrepreneur Philippines´ December 2009 issue.

I’ve always admired Anderson Cooper. While Katie Couric has some journalistic chops, I think she’s gone to the corporate dark side. Anderson Cooper has the classic hard-hitting journalist attitude, but as his appearances on shows like Regis and Kelly have proven, has some angst and biting sarcasm that the people of my generation thrive upon.

There’s a video of Anderson on YouTube covering the Hurricane Katrina from New Orleans where, in the middle of his interview with a government official, he cuts her off and begins chastising her for taking the advantage of the air time to make herself look good and place the blame on other people. While the media strive to be unbiased, in the face of events like Katrina, and now, Haiti, you have to take a side.

From Anderson Cooper’s blog:

As things got really out of control, I saw a looter on the roof of the store they’d broken into throw what I think was part of a concrete block into the crowd. It hit a small boy in the head.

I saw him collapse. More chunks of concrete were being thrown at the looters on the roof. The injured boy couldn’t get up. He’d try and then collapse again. Blood was pouring from his head. He was conscious but had no control over his body. I was afraid someone on the roof would see him lying there and throw another cinder block piece onto him. I was afraid he’d get killed. No one seemed to be helping him.

I ran to where he was struggling, and picked him up off the ground. I brought him to a spot about a hundred feet away. I could feel his warm blood on my arms. I stood him up, but he was clearly unable to walk. He wiped his bloody face, and I tried to reassure him.

In journalism, there is such a thing as “off the record.” I first heard it when I was interviewing a member of the President’s cabinet for a requirement in one of my journ classes. We were talking for about half and hour, when I asked him how it was working for the government. He took my recorder on the table, looked at it, and pressed the stop button, saying, “This is off the record,” and continued talking. I was a bit peeved at the fact he took my recorder without asking me, but was excited at the fact I was going to get some juicy government gossip. As my current editor once said, “off the record” means “for your information only.” It will only serve as a background to the whole issue and cannot be credited to whoever said it.

I have never encountered a subject (yet) who has requested to remain anonymous, probably because I’m in a business magazine and not a hard-hitting broadsheet. The only thing entrepreneurs want to keep secret is their capital, which I still ask (for reference), but don’t publish. But really, when you’re talking to the press, expect everything to get published, even what you’re wearing–it’s a great intro device, clothes.

Meanwhile, this is a perfect example of failure to protect your source’s identity. See, even the BCC makes mistakes. Anonymous fail!

Sorry, Abu Ibrahim.

I haven’t been paying attention to the news lately because–and this excuse is true–I haven’t found the time. For someone working in the media, this is unacceptable. I understand that a magnitude 7 earthquake hit Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. I’ve seen the web reports on the lack of international aid, the rampant looting, the damaged buildings, but most of all, the dead, the dying, and the survivors. Local news hasn’t been that thorough as the focus has been on Filipinos working in the area, occasionally touching on the plight of the Haitians.

Perhaps being a third-world country ourselves prevents us from acting too altruistic, or at least feeling altruistic towards the people of Haiti. But that’s no excuse. I’m a visual person. It’s hard to imagine that on the other side of the world, this is going on. But it is.

Haitians survey the damage to a building that collapsed onto a road in downtown Port-au-Prince , Haiti (REUTERS/Hans Deryk)

A mob of Haitians reach out as goods are thrown from a nearby shop in the downtown business district on January 17, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

Georges Boutin of Fort Lauderdale, Florida (with hacksaw) and daughter (right) Pier Boutin of Lenox, Massachussets use a hacksaw to amputate a woman’s leg in Port Au Prince General Hospital. It was the first surgery at the country’s largest hospital since the earthquake. (Globe staff photo/Bill Greene)

A Haitian mass grave receives unclaimed, unidentified bodies in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince January 16, 2010. (Olivier Laban Mattei/AFP/Getty Images)

Men stand near a burning body left in the street in Port-au-Prince, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010. U.N. peacekeepers patrolling the capital said popular anger is rising and warned authorities and aid organizations to increase security to guard against looting after Tuesday’s earthquake. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Looters steal a bag of another looter who lies dead, shot by the police on January 17, 2010 near the Hypolite Market in Port-au-Prince. (Olivier Laban Mattei/AFP/Getty Images)

A man pulls the body of an earthquake victim from a coffin in order to steal the coffin at the cemetery in Port-au-Prince, Friday, Jan. 15, 2010. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

People walk on a debris-covered street in Port-au-Prince January 17, 2010. (REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar)

PHOTO/CAPTION CREDIT
Boston.com

Rhoel Dinglasan, a Filipino entomologist and biologist at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland has discovered a new vaccine against malaria. I’m no med student or doctor, but for millions of people–children–in Africa, this could save their lives. As an aside, how can you not mistake the name Rhoel for Filipino? I’m just saying.

Dinglasan has found an antigen, called AnAPN1, that causes humans to create antibodies that prevent transmission of malaria by mosquitoes. Get enough of these antibodies into mosquitoes, and you lock the disease up there and prevent it from infecting us. Sounds good, but how do you implement such a strategy? You can hardly vaccinate the mosquitoes themselves. Instead, you put the AnAPN1 into their food source: us. A mosquito that bites an inoculated person would pick up the antibodies and then be sidelined from the malaria-transmission game.

Continue reading here.

A week before I started working, I was lucky enough to be given a free media pass to last year’s Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival at the Cultural Center. The only requirement was that I watch every movie. I was more than happy to oblige. I would trek to the CCP every morning, shuttle between screenings (sometimes run), and go home late at night satisfied and with a lingering headache from staring at a screen the whole day. That’s my version of a movie marathon. And I did that for six days. My finally tally was 22 movies.

The Ateneo Video Open, now on its eleventh year, is an annual nationwide film competition open to collegiate-level filmmakers. It’s organized by the Loyola Film Circle, the Ateneo de Manila University’s premiere film organization.

The event aims to highlight the effective use of aesthetically pleasing films as media for social discourse. There are four categories: short narrative, music video, documentary, and experimental.

Screenings of entries will be on the weekends of February and March. Venues will be announced. The competition will end in an awards night where cash prizes await the winners of each category judged by renowned persons in the field of film and art.

Visit the official website: http://ateneovideoopen11.multiply.com to view the rules, regulations and mechanics. Application forms are also available in the website. Deadline of entries is on January 22. 2010.

For inquiries, contact the AVO Team at ateneovideoopen11@yahoo.com and at ateneovideoopen11@gmail.com, 0916-228-45-67 or 0917-327-70-55.