There is a complex and ongoing battle between humans and insect pests, according to Dr Phil Batterham, a researcher in the University of Melbourne's Department of Genetics and the deputy director and program leader at the ARC-funded Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research. Many chemical and biological weapons have been devised to control and prevent insects from attacking crops, but insects are highly adaptive and sooner or later they evolve their way around every weapon that is used against them. [ + ]

The world now has detailed gene catalogues, maps and DNA sequences for two distantly related eutherian mammals: the mouse, Mus musculus, a rodent, and a large-brained African primate, Homo sapiens. Where to now? Prof Jenny Graves believes that, to achieve the maximum yield about the deep genetic history of the world's mammals, it should be a marsupial -- specifically, a kangaroo. [ + ]

As CEO of Adelaide's BresaGen, Dr John Smeaton is no doubt familiar with the ancient Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times". [ + ]

Listen carefully and one can almost hear new biotechnology companies sprouting from Australia's bioscience research landscape. [ + ]

While scientific discovery is often regarded as absolute, the rules of law seem much more fluid, governed by a mish-mash of regulations and precedents across myriad jurisdictions ensuring that even success in gaining patents or defending intellectual property in court is no long-term guarantee in biotech. [ + ]

With its long hours of sunlight, the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area of NSW produces the highest yields of any rice-growing region in the world, but the water-hungry crop requires around 20 megalitres of water to produce a tonne of rice. CSIRO Plant Industry molecular geneticist Dr Liz Dennis believes new rice varieties bred for cold tolerance could reduce that figure by 30 per cent, yielding substantial savings for the Murray-Darling system's over-extended water reserves. [ + ]

Next year, 2003 marks the 50th anniversary of an epochal moment in human history: Watson and Crick's solving of the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule. It's also the year that will bring many of the biggest names in world genetics to Melbourne for the 19th International Genetics Congress, among them at least three Nobel laureates, including James Watson, co-discoverer of the immortal coil, and an immortal of modern science in his own lifetime. [ + ]

Research institutes looking at ways to commercialise their intellectual property could do worse than examine the model used by Melbourne's Austin Research Institute. [ + ]

The selection of the correct gas and equipment should be based on individual laboratory applications as gas purity requirements are directly related to analyser requirements and the field of use or working domain

At a Sydney conference last month, Kerri Hartland, the executive general manager of Commonwealth government agency Biotechnology Australia, revealed the results of a poll which asked Australian biotechs what they thought were their biggest challenges. [ + ]

Bioprocessing and fermentation are essential parts of the biotechnology product development cycle. If a drug or therapeutic is produced by a living organism, whether it's bacteria, yeast, plant cells or mammalian cells, some form of large-scale fermentation or culture is required to produce the entity, and usually some form of downstream processing is necessary to extract, purify, concentrate and formulate the end product. [ + ]

What began as a trickle of new genes in the late 1970s has become a flood, as genomics projects deliver new genetic maps, huge catalogues of genes, and a ticker-tape blizzard of DNA sequences almost every other week. [ + ]

Good ideas and good science are not the only things a biotechnology company needs to get itself off the ground. In order to raise the amount of capital needed to take a company from being a mere glint in the eye of a scientist to a successful, publicly listed biotechnology company requires a lot of behind the scenes planning and strategy, business acumen, and networking. [ + ]

Tucked away in the corner of the Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre campus in Melbourne suburb of Heidelberg is the Brain Research Institute (BRI), devoted to research into epilepsy and other neural disorders, as well as the function of the healthy brain. [ + ]

Bioclusters are complex animals whose care and feeding now commands respectful attention in the upper echelons of Australia's biotechnology community. [ + ]