As with any emerging science there is some controversy regarding nomenclature, but the newly formed Metabolomics Society seems to be adhering to a convention consistent with the other '-omic' sciences

Vaxine's Nikolai Petrovsky says peptide vaccines work well in highly inbred laboratory mice, but have consistently failed in clinical trials over the past two decades because humans are an outbred species. [ + ]

Several Australian companies are trialling new 'natural' and synthetic adjuvants that combine potent immuno-stimulatory activity with low toxicity. Australia's biggest biotech, Melbourne's CSL (ASX:CSL), is boosting its experimental vaccines with its Iscomatrix adjuvant system, a phospholipid-cholesterol formulation containing a purified saponin extract from the bark of the South American tree Quillaja saponaria. [ + ]

Shakespeare's witches, in 'Macbeth', were concocting mischief, not some nostrum to ward off plague, but some of the things that imbue today's vaccines with immunogenic fizz would not have been misplaced among the eldritch ingredients in their cauldron. [ + ]

Some Australian biotechs are getting creative with company structure. But analysts prefer their companies to play it straight. [ + ]

In a recent project, electrophysiology researchers at Westmead Hospital in Sydney required a system to acquire and analyse signals measured using a micro-electrode array

I'm a statistician. I don't know a mass spectrometer from a resonating horoscope. But it seems to me that many practitioners and researchers do not have an optimal balance between the various stages of their data collection

How effective LIMS software design can leverage evolving technologies to reduce risk and improve ROI. As the commercial LIMS marketplace evolves and matures, it continually faces the challenge of technology change

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have discovered the world's strongest acid. Remarkably it is also the gentlest acid

Australian venture capitalists invested more than $1 million per week in Australian biotechnology in the past financial year, an increase on the previous year and a recovery to the historic level of two years ago. As in the past, a large portion of the investment was made by a small number of investors, and was received by a small number of investees. [ + ]

GeoVOC represents a new approach to near-surface geochemical petroleum prospecting. Developed in conjunction with petroleum prospecting companies, GeoVOC uses SIFT-MS to reduce sample analysis time from up to thirty minutes to less than thirty seconds

When Francis Crick and James Watson deciphered the structure of DNA in 1953, x-ray crystallography became famous. X-ray crystallography has long since become the workhorse for structural studies of big biological molecules

What's New Magazines and Science Industry Australia Inc (SIA) invite entries to the Laboratory of the Year competition. All new or renovated laboratories completed and occupied between 1 January 2002 and 31 December 2004 are eligible to enter

With Biotechnology Innovation Fund and R&D Start grants rolled into the new Commercial Ready, the Australian biotech sector may face a post-BIF bust, writes Michael Vitale. [ + ]

At a recent conference in Sydney, biotechs and big pharma came together to explore how they should work together. Renate Krelle was there. [ + ]