Articles
FEATURE: Why biotech recruiters are confident in '04
The slump in the Australian biotechnology industry in the first half of 2003 was reflected in the recruitment market, according to leading recruitment consultants. [ + ]
Limiting 'noise' in 2D gels
2D gel electrophoresis (2DE) is a scientific technique that is a cornerstone of proteomics research. 2DE has evolved dramatically both in terms of the number of scientists utilising the technique and how it is applied within their research
[ + ]Did BIF offer bang for its buck?
The fifth round of Biotechnology Innovation Fund (BIF) grants, announced late last month by Federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, is the final funding round for the $40 million program. Over its lifetime, the BIF scheme has supported 164 projects in 153 companies, ranging from tiny start-ups to listed giants such as Orica. [ + ]
Image analysis developments in forensic science
The fingerprint recognition method may be over a century old but it is not likely to be replaced soon. But a recent development is now updating the processes used for capturing, storing and making arrests from fingerprint evidence
[ + ]The facts about simultaneous cooling
It sounds almost paradoxical. Why would anyone try to cool something at the same time they were trying to heat it? In the case of microwave-accelerated synthesis, the answer is enhanced yields
[ + ]FEATURE: Clinical trials on trial
Clinical trial activity in Australia is booming, reports Melissa Trudinger -- but can the system cope? [ + ]
Clinical trials: Building synergies
Spearheading clinical trials in Victoria is Cancer Trials Australia, a consortium involving four hospitals -- including Austin Health, the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Western Hospital -- as well as the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. [ + ]
PROTEOMICS FEATURE: The promise (and problem) of proteomics
Proteomics. It's often touted as being the next revolution in biotechnology, the key to understanding biological pathways and disease states, a force that is driving research forward with an explosion of new technologies. But is identifying and describing the proteins of the human body providing the answers scientists and drug companies are after? [ + ]
Proteomics: The human proteome projects
Richard Simpson came home from the second annual meeting of the Human Proteome Organisation in Montreal last month as the organisation's vice-president. But Simpson, of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Melbourne, has too much on his mind to be too carried away by the esteem of the role. [ + ]
Proteomics: Fluorotechnics gets it right first time
Sydney start-up Fluorotechnics has signed a deal under which multinational Amersham Biosciences will exclusively supply and distribute its Deep Purple protein stain worldwide. [ + ]
Proteomics: We have the technology
Doing proteomics is expensive, relying on a suite of new and traditional technology with hefty price tags -- sample prep, mass specs, gel spot cutters, electrophoresis, and substantial IT hardware. [ + ]
Are you serious about sterility?
In applications as diverse as dairy, brewing and molecular microbiology, drinking water analysis and pharmaceutical research, clinical waste disposal and sewage treatment, sterility is the key word in good laboratory practice
[ + ]Separating basic and polar compounds
Due to the presence of residual acidic silanol groups in most commercial packings, secondary chromatographic effects are common and are usually troublesome. As a result, efficiency and peak shape for some analytes are usually unacceptable at neutral pH
[ + ]The $6 million wallaby: push continues for homegrown genome project
In what Francis Collins has termed "an unprecedented offer," the US NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute has offered to share the cost of generating the sequence of the tammar wallaby genome despite going ahead with an American opossum species as the chosen marsupial for comparative genomics. [ + ]
Getting value from grid computing
Growing interest in grid computing technologies will drive its rapid advancement as the technology grows from research darling to commercial reality, IBM's senior grid computing strategist, Rob Vrablik, predicted during a recent visit to Sydney. [ + ]