A team of researchers from McGill/MUHC validates a novel screening tool in the fight against Chagas disease.

The results of two separate research studies taking place at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics will help physicians predict which newborns may require readmission to the hospital shortly after birth. The studies will also help physicians identify which of their young patients are likely to respond well - or not - to steroid therapy for asthma.

Cloud computing - where IT assets and raw computing power are outsourced over the internet - is rapidly growing in popularity, particularly amongst biotechnology companies in Japan, India and China, according to analysts, Ovum. [ + ]

Venture capital looks for three things in a biotechology company: people, people and people. So said Michael Quinn, managing partner at Innovation Capital, speaking at the inaugural Australian Life Scientist Roundtable discussion on Friday. [ + ]

Termites hate it, but home owners may come to love it. It's the termite repellent developed by Australian natural products developer, BioProspect. [ + ]

If you excuse the mixed metaphor, there is light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re not out of the woods yet. That appears to be the sentiment amongst the Australian biotechnology community in the opening months of 2010. [ + ]

Queensland-based private biopharma company, Xenome, has raised $10 million in funds in the form of convertible notes to fuel continued development of its flagship pain drug, Xen2174. [ + ]

Researchers have discovered 2,363 new DNA sequences corresponding to 730 regions on the human genome that were not charted in the reference map produced to date. [ + ]

The biotechnology sector has seen another quarter of strong growth, with the majors - CSL, ResMed and Cochlear - putting in healthy performances, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' latest BioForum report. [ + ]

Over half the Australian population is either overweight or obese, with many experiencing corresponding health effects, such as cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes. [ + ]

The Australian biotechnology industry is warming up for BIO 2010, to be held in Chicago from May 3-6, and Queensland is planning on being well represented at the world's largest biotech convention. [ + ]

LBT Innovations received two bits of good news today. First is that €2 million came through as a scheduled milestone payment from bioMérieux for LBT's MicroStreak technology. [ + ]

It would have been an inconceivable venture only a decade ago, before even the first full human genome had been published. But now a family of four has paid close to $US200,000 to sequencing company, Illumina, have their full genomes sequenced. [ + ]

In a paper published in the April 16 issue of the journal Cell, a team of researchers, led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), have taken steps toward a fuller understanding of this process by revealing just what happens to the organelle, its DNA (mtDNA), and its energy-producing ability when mitochondrial fusion fails. [ + ]

Fuelling the growing momentum toward openness, transparency, and accessibility to publicly funded information, the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2010 (FRPAA) has been introduced today in the US House of Representatives by Republican Mike Doyle (D-PA) and a bi-partisan host of co-sponsors. [ + ]