The growth of China’s life sciences sector presents tremendous opportunities for Australian biotechs, but it pays to understand the nuances of the culture and take things slow. [ + ]

Two Sydney researchers coming from entirely different backgrounds have teamed up to find out how the hedgehog pathway is being hijacked by breast cancer calls – with a potential win-win result for patients. [ + ]

Scientists have designed a much simpler method of preparing ordered magnetic material.

Deep in the recently published wallaby genome are genes that might yield antibiotics that could combat the growing number of multi-resistant bacteria. [ + ]

Peer into the wonders of the micro with the 37th Annual Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition, showcasing some of the best microscopy images from researchers around the world. The official judging for the Nikon Small World took place on May 12, 2011. The winners will be announced in October, but Nikon is giving you the chance to pick your favourites among this year’s top entries. [ + ]

Members of the public are being asked to join the SkyNet community computing science initiative and contribute their spare computing power to process radio astronomy data.

Understanding the proteomics of plant mitochondria can potentially unlock the secrets of plant respiration and salt tolerance, enabling us to produce stronger crops. [ + ]

Professor Harvey Millar’s team at the University of Western Australia is delving into the proteomic depths of plant respiration, helping us to grow stronger and more salt tolerant crops. [ + ]

From Devils’ Advocates to beating malaria, life scientists have received several prestigious Eureka Awards at the gala dinner last night. [ + ]

Recognising the need to demonstrate its timeline of discoveries and prove IP inventorship for legal defensibility, Australian pharmaceutical company Cancer Therapeutics CRC has invested in data authenticity protection.

The demands of compliance-based processes in the life science industry has created specific requirements to capture, catalogue, review, approve and present data used in quality decision-making for drug products.

Cancer patients may view their tumours as parasites taking over their bodies, but this is more than a metaphor for Peter Duesberg, a molecular and cell biology professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

The ASBMB, ASPS and ANZSCDB are holding their joint annual conference from 25-29 September at the Cairns Convention Centre in North Queensland - and everyone’s invited.

Pharmaceutical and biomedical research are evolving to take advantage of the development of bioinformatic research programs, incorporating data from new high-resolution assays and technologies such as microarrays and fluorescent in situ hybridisation.

When culturing cells, not only is the constitution of the media significant, so is the solid, physical environment. By using different patterned surfaces, researchers have found that they can use the surface itself to instruct the cells, which could be really useful for growing cells on a larger scale and differentiating them under defined conditions.