The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking

Quezon City, 3 September 2010 -- While everyone else is asleep, Janet is up at three o'clock in the morning tapping at the keyboard to do her paper works. Late in the afternoon, her energy level tumbles and she has to hit the bed at eight in the evening.

Meanwhile, Amy wakes up unhurriedly when most people are already in frenzied work mode. Her energy level then peaks as afternoon warms up, and can work until the roosters broadcast a new day.

Larks like Janet and owls like Amy apparently have different behavioral and work patterns. Scientists say such patterns are influenced by their biological clocks, also known as circadian clocks.

"Understanding the circadian clock is particularly important in these industrialized and information-driven times," says Dr. Eduardo Mendoza, a visiting scientist under the Department of Science and Technology's Balik Scientist Program.

Circadian clocks regulate and modulate body functions including gene expression, body systems, behavior, and even how a person thinks.

"Along with the booming business process outsourcing industry in the country is the rise in the number of employees on shift work. Studies have shown that shift work is associated with health risks," Mendoza adds. "This shows that work schedule and a person's circadian clock have to match."

In the Philippines, call center employees work on a shift adjusted to offshore clients' time zone. In the case of US-based clients, that's about 8-12 hours behind Philippine standard time. This means call center agents work at night and catch up on sleep at day.

This odd work-sleep setup increases call center employees' vulnerability to cancer, cardiovascular, and gastrointestinal diseases caused by disrupted circadian clock.

Fortunately, Dr. Mendoza is leading a research team set to study the Filipinos' circadian clock.

This interdisciplinary group called PhilSHIFT is composed of researchers from the University of the Philippines Manila, and the Ludwig Maximilian University (Munich) that aims to determine the Filipinos' circadian clock in an entirely different work environment from those studied elsewhere.

Knowing people's chronotype is important for both medical diagnostics and therapy.

Dr. Mendoza, a Senior Research Scientist of the Systems Biology Group of the Physics Department and Center of NanoScience, has helped UPM researchers in drafting project proposals for collaboration with LMU, which pioneered studies in human circadian clock and shift work in various countries and settings. Meanwhile, Dr. Darwin Dasig leads the UPM research team.

PhilSHIFT will study individual circadian clock differences and complexity through an online questionnaire called Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (MCTQ). Mendoza's group invites everyone to participate in this study by creating an account at http:www.bioinfo.mpg.de/thewep/.

Other than the PhilSHIFT project, Dr. Mendoza's stint as Balik Scientist was crammed with lectures and advisorships to students working on metabolic network and database of natural products. He also completed the project implementation designs for Virholex information system and user manual, and computational requirements for the Philippine Genome Center health initiatives.

Other Balik Scientists who linked up with the academe early this year include Engr. Antonio Reyno, a Professional Officer at the School of Civil Engineering in University of Sydney, Australia, who helped Palawan State University; Shirley Chavez, a Senior IT Specialist at IBM Canada, who assisted UP Los Baños; and Dr. Reynaldo Garcia, Project Director of the BioGuide UK Project, who served the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology in UP Diliman.

Posted by Veronica Silva Cusi, news correspondent
Source: http://www.pia.gov.ph

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