South Australia’s fledgling biotechnology industry has received the first of two shots in the arm with the commissioning of Hydra, a $1.7 million system that is Australia’s third-largest supercomputer and the largest of its type. [ + ]

The consumables market in Australia has long been supported by the lab, mining and agricultural customer. But now, biotech is changing the landscape. Faster moving, smaller and more disposable, consumables are making the move to a technology based market. Jeremy Torr reports [ + ]

Some Australian listed biotechs are trapped in a death spiral. Shareholders are reluctant to top up their original investments, while cash burn rates tip them ever closer to the edge of insolvency. But there are bright spots, writes Pete Young [ + ]

Graeme O'Neill discovers that the biotech community needs a whole new strategy to win points on GM crops [ + ]

La Trobe University physicists have reversed the traditional direction of technology flow by designing and building a highly sophisticated toroidal electron spectrometer and exporting it to Germany

Following the launch of Genethon, France decided to invest heavily in investigating the genome of plants and, more recently, animals by means of high-budget programs combining public and private research. The first applications are now starting to appear

Victoria prides itself as the powerhouse of Australian biotech. But not everything is blooming in the state's biotech garden, writes Graeme O'Neill [ + ]

Locals thank strong government support for helping to boost Victoria's biomedical industry, Melissa Trudinger discovers. [ + ]

There's at least one respected member of the investment community who believes the biotech boom is around the corner. Despite the complications that have surrounded the birth of the international biotechnology industry, Leslie Platt, a biotech investment expert with the international accountancy firm Ernst and Young, is irrepressibly bullish about its future. [ + ]

The service centre model for proteomics has taken off in the last few years. Iain Scott looks at some of the groups around Australia who are staking out their claims in this area. [ + ]

Other states may have more surface glitz and glamour, but many local experts agree NSW has the makings of a solid, healthy and expanding biotech industry. Jeremy Torr investigates. [ + ]

With the 3rd Australian Microarray Conference just around the corner, Jeremy Torr takes a look at what's new in the technology. [ + ]

Thanks to a massive infrastructure funding boost from a government led by bio-enthusiast Premier Peter Beattie, Queensland got off to a fast start in biotechnology. But, asks Pete Young, is the venture capital bottleneck pushing its plans off track? [ + ]

De novo sequencing has evolved to become a very useful tool for the complete elucidation of protein primary structures - especially in case of an unknown proteome. In a recent contest, MALDI-TOF/TOF MS has shown its huge potential for this task

Laboratories in the metal industry perform a variety of tasks that are closely tied to the production process. X-ray fluorescence and optical emission spectroscopy today are the preferred techniques