How to save the Australian biotechnology industry

Biotech is in crisis, but rather than run around like the stereotypical decapitated poultry, how can the industry save itself?

We explore the biotech crisis in the bumper biotech issue of Australian Life Scientist, out today.

Innovation Minister Kim Carr explains his government’s intentions for the industry, while biotech industry representatives put their requirements on the table.

We also look at some of the best, the brightest and the baddest biotechs in the country.

In an extensive interview with Dr Merv Jacobson, founder and former CEO of gene testing company Genetic Technologies (GTG), Graeme O’Neill explores the fractious debate over gene patenting.

Last year, GTG caused a hullabaloo when it announced it would enforce its exclusive license to test for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast cancer genes.

Public laboratories would no longer be allowed to test for the mutations, with all testing to be done at GTG’s Melbourne lab.

After much public debate and the overthrow of GTG’s board, a move led by Jacobson, the decision was reversed.

We also explore developments in cell biology, stem cells, triplet repeat expansion disorders and pathology and diagnostics. Interviews include:

• Hot Arabidopsis and its triplet trouble – Sureshkumar Balasubramanian on how Arabidopsis may prove a genetically tractable model to study triplet repeat expansions

• Complex interactions – John Rasko on two aminoaciduria disorders and how a complex interaction between genes underlies the human genome

• A little host-parasite interaction – Dominique Soldati-Favre and the Apicomplexa phylum of parasites

• Jenny Gamble and the twilight years for vascular endothelial cells

• Peter Gunning on how to re-grow muscle with chemo-resistant stem cells, and perhaps by calling on the mesenchyme

• Paul Verma on Australia’s own lines of induced pluripotent stem cells

• Ben Herbert on fixing up the dodgy hips of dogs with mesenchymal stem cells

• and Rebecca Traub, on how to tell one fluke from another.

We also profile biotech companies Hexima, Novogen and Implicit Biosciences and look at how to correct optical aberrations in fluorescence microscopy to measure proteins.

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