Lifestyle: Ester B. Flores Animal Genetics Pioneer

She may have chosen to stay as a high-income earning veterinarian, but Ester B. Flores opted for a less lucrative government work, one that may even be more difficult. “Money was not a problem (as a veterinarian). But my time also wasn’t mine. I should be up early because there was going to be a caesarian operation, and I would be awake at midnight because a dog was going to give birth,” she said. Having gotten over the excitement of a veterinary work after three years of practice, she took another job as a medical representative at a veterinary drug company. But when the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) opened a work for a science research specialist, somehow that was an end to her searching.
For the tradeoff, she got a job that gives fulfillment of helping raise the income of thousands of farmers tending carabaos, the animal identified with poor Filipino farmers. That along with a rare opportunity of pioneering in a profession nobody else in the livestock industry has treaded before—Molecular marker-Assisted Selection (MAS). Ester was fascinated with animals since she was a child and dreamt to become a medical doctor. “But I was afraid of dead bodies, and I thought, when I’m working on an anatomy of a dead body, I might just die once it winks at me.”
HERE ARE WHAT SHE TOOK FOR HER EDUCATION, TRAINING, AND SOME PERSONAL NOTES. HIGH SCHOOL: valedictorian, Pampanga Agricultural College
Veterinary Medicine, University of the Philippines-Diliman FULBRIGHT MASTER OF SCIENCE SCHOLARSHIP: M.S. Animal Science-Genetics, University of Arkansas TRAININGS: Pedigree Registration System, Holstein Cattle Association Japan, Tokyo; Estimation of Genetic Parameters and Model for Genetic Evaluation of Dairy and Swamp Buffaloes, University of New England Armidale, Australia; Genetic Evaluation and Analysis of Ruminant Animals, University of New England Armidale, New South Wales, Australia; Large Animal Internal Medicine, Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido University Sapporo Japan. CIVIL STATUS: married with two children
INSPIRATIONAL BOOK: My Aces, My Faults by Nick Bollettieri
SPORT: tennis, all seven of us siblings grew up in the court
Preparing more people for a profession on GENETICS:
Eventually all that’s being done in the laboratory are quantitative which needs a Statistics background. It will be a lot easier already with good skills on Statistics. Genetics is Statistics applied in Science. Flores admits she realized Math is easy only when she recognized its importance in genetics. She avoided Math in college, having taken only Algebra and Accounting (as an elective)— only to find out Math is a must in studying what she was to like the most. After all, she has proven there is a hope for everybody in Math. “I avoided Math, but it turned out my work now is very quantitative. When I took Statistics together with undergraduate students (at the University of Arkansas) while taking my master’s (which was why I was always loaded every semester over four semesters,) that’s when I realized ‘it’s very easy after all.’” But her appreciation of Math as a result of liking genetics would not have happened if not for Dutch scientists, specifically Julius van der Werf, an academician who inspired her on the beauty of this discipline. “I was challenged when we attended a crash course on Animal Genetics in Australia. I realized we’re not doing anything in the Philippines.” Van der Werf accompanied Ester to the graduate school at the University of New England to encourage her to pursue this master’s. But it was through Fulbright that she got hers. Not to be missed, Ester also received her first support to take up Genetics from PCC Executive Director Libertado C. Cruz himself. Cruz then gave her the authority to start a system for the adoption of marker assisted selection at PCC after she had completed her master’s. Every now and then, Flores receives questions on when she would be taking her Ph.D. They in the livestock world also call it becoming a “doctor-doctor.” “Maybe when there’s time.” Her application form for a scholarship in a Dutch school has been waiting to be filled up since maybe 2004. But there are three projects at PCC running at the same time that she’s preoccupied with— 1. Embryo transfer, superovulation of goats (imported breeds being borne by natives) 2. Genetic characterization of buffalo genome, microsatellite marker, and 3. DA-Biotech Project. These are on top of her normal work on PCC’s Genetic Improvement Program (GIP) where PCC collects data on animals and evaluates their performance mainly on milk production. From its collection of animals with superior traits, PCC distributes semen for artificial insemination to its regional centers nationwide for testing and distribution to farmers. Flores and her group of eight or nine people at GIP are also the ones identifying the bulls that have to be mated with which animals. Despite the busyness, Flores does have her dream of pursuing a Ph.D. at the Wageningen University, a topnotch school on Life Sciences located in Netherlands. Studying at the Wageningen gives one an advantage of having a hybrid program, allowing one to take some courses in Netherlands and also take some time doing one’s research in his country of origin. “You can bring your family with you,” like what I did while studying my master’s.”
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