Dr. Melbourne Rio Talactac is currently the Vice President for Research and Extension of Cavite State University (CvSU). His exemplary service as an educator in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, CvSU and as a researcher helped him earn various awards and recognition such as the Outstanding Young Scientist (2020) by the National Academy of Science & Technology of the Philippines and Outstanding Veterinarian in Education (2020) by the Philippine Veterinary Medical Association. He was also the Philippine Nominee for the APEC Science Prize for Innovation, Research and Education “ASPIRE” Prize 2020.
Virology, Innate immunity
Currently he is involved in detecting economically important tick-borne pathogens in animals and establishment of baseline data on the efficiency of animal rabies vaccination drives in his home Province (Cavite) and the overall human rabies immune status of veterinarians and veterinary medicine students