Congratulation to our New Minister of Health

Last Wednesday at 21^st October 2009, Our President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono aka SBY announce his new cabinet. This cabinet was called KABINET INDONESIA BERSATU Jilid II (United Indonesia Cabinet part II). To select all the ministers for this cabinet, SBY used fit and proper test. There are some steps that all candidates must through, and all of them must passed the health screening.  There is a controversial after SBY announced this cabinet, because one candidate that has been announced in the media wasn’t in this cabinet. Nila Joewita Moeloek, who was a candidate for minister of health, was replaced by Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih in “the last minute” before the announcement. The reason of this replacement is because Mrs. Moeloek hasn’t passed the health screening. Because of that sudden change, many people judge SBY embarrassed Mrs.  Moeloek. Besides that, many people judge Endang Sedyaningsih wasn’t capable to sit in this position because she’s only echelon II in Department of Health (DoH), and then they treat her as a traitor  because she had collaborated with United States of Naval Medical Research Unit-2 (US NAMRU-2), as a researcher. Well, first of all, let’s ignore about this issue, and we can see our new minister of health’s background.

dr. Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih, MPH, DR.PH born in Jakarta at 1^st February 1955. She got her bachelor degree from Faculty of medicine University of Indonesia at 1979, and her master and doctoral degree from Harvard School of Public Health at 1992 and 1997. She’s the director of Center for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research & Programme Development National Institute of Health Research & Development-MOH since 2007. And in 2001, Endang was working at World Health Organization (WHO) in Jenewa, Swiss ^(1,2). Her publications can be seen in BiomedExperts.  There are so many publications written by her collaborated with her colleagues who are varied from Indonesia and another country

In my opinion, she is capable to do her job as a Minister of Health. It wasn’t easy to be accepted as an undergraduate student at University of Indonesia, especially it wasn’t easy to be accepted at Harvard. So I think she has “something” to offer for this country. She has many experiences working with many people that have different cultures, it made her mind WIDER and of course she has erudition. And with her background in research, I hope Indonesia will put more concern in that field. Research and development can help Indonesia to become healthier and stronger country. About her collaboration with US NAMRU-2 that has been one of the reasons for the controversial, she mentioned that she’s collaborating with many countries and US NAMRU is one of them. She said that this collaboration will be continued but in different shape, more transparent and gives benefits to both country. The US Navy will not interrupt the institution, and US-NAMRU-2 will collaborate with CDC and also NIH, it will change its name into Indonesia-USAaid Center for Biomedical and Public Health Research (IUC).

For many people who against her promotion as Minister of Health, please don’t use Indonesia as your excuse, because not every people in this nation against and underestimate dr. Endang. For every people who underestimate her, let her prove  her capability to this nation first before you say that she will be replaced in 100 days. Let us support our new cabinet and try to do our part. Congratulation for dr. Endang, hope so you can prove your self that you are fit for this position and bring some improvements to this country and also bring a fresh air to our research fields ..^^ ..Gbu

Learn from bacteria

Just got an inspiration from my Thai friend..How we can use lab things as a lesson for our lives..^^..Actually we talked about failure, and then she said that the failure is like our worked in lab, it’s not always succeed, but we can learn from our failure,searching for the mistake and then do it over until we succeed. And then suddenly i thought we can learn many lessons from lab, especially from bacteria/ microbes..^^

1.Microbes are small living creatures, we cant see them with naked eyes..Some microbes can be Mr. Jekyll, but some can be Mr. Hyde..hehehe..like us, we can be a good person and give a good impact for our surroundings, or we can give a bad influences and make others upset..The differences between us with microbes is  the microbes can be Mr. Jekyll or Hyde depends on their genes and surroundings,but we can choose what we want to be. We cant blame our parents or our surrounding for making us a bad person,it’s our own decision..^^..

2. Bacteria strives to lives..^^..When we culture microbes,we try to make a suitable condition for them,the nutrition or even the temperature. But sometimes they can adapt and still grow even the condition isn’t optimum. In my university, the E.coli can grow in Potato Dextrose Agar which is an agar for fungi..^^..Well we usually said the E.coli was mutated..^^..In fact it strives, the bacteria regulate its genes so it can live in its new environtment. I believe bacteria that can live in  extreme conditions like  Thermococcus was struggle first before it can lives in high temperature..As a human we need to adapt and struggle for living in this world. Life is tough..^^..

3. Before the bacteria like Streptococcus pneumoniae can invade our immune system, they colonize first..Not only for invasion, microbes always live  with their colony, that’s why we always count them as colony form unit (CFU).The point is we can’t live alone, we need others to help us, strengthen us. Together we are strong..^^

Well…I think my brain was contaminated with the lab “things”..hehehe…enough for this morning..Xp