Natural-products chemists may be able to decrease the amount of time it takes for the development of certain types of medicinal drugs.

A simple, cheap laboratory test developed at Southern Illinois University Carbondale can unerringly detect Sudden Death Syndrome, a costly fungal disease, in soybean seedlings. Once commercialised, its use will help breeders produce SDS-resistant soybean varieties much faster than they can now.

Developer of customised industrial-scale separation services Upfront Chromatography has announced that commercial production of highly functional proteins from the side stream of potato processing has been enabled using its Rhobust processing platform. The Rhobust adsorbent is a key component of Solanic’s industrial processing plant, which was officially opened in December 2007 in Gasselternijveen, Netherlands. Solanic is the protein business unit of the potato starch giant AVEBE.

In the world of commercial materials, lighter and cheaper is usually better — especially when those attributes are coupled with superior strength and special properties, such as a recently developed material's ability to remember its original shape after it has been deformed by a physical or magnetic force.

Researchers have solved the structure of a DNA-protein complex that is crucial in the spread of antibiotic resistance among bacteria, providing insights into how cells successfully divide into two new cells with intact DNA.

Matt Gillespie is the new director of Melbourne's Prince Henry's Institute. [ + ]

US scientists have modelled an enzyme critical to the process of DNA transcription and replication which could be a prime target for antibacterial and anticancer drugs.

Research into plasmid inheritance could turn the tables on antibiotic resistance. [ + ]

Matt Padula is part of a team at UTS that is using de novo peptide sequencing of the proteins and enzymes in a common tick to look for candidate antigens for a potential vaccine against one of Australia's deadliest parasites. [ + ]

Genomics is old hat and proteomics is now where it's at, according to Richard Christopherson. [ + ]

A standard laboratory tool for measuring pharmacological activity of biological substances may soon be replaced by a miniaturised bioassay that will be faster, cheaper and more efficient for scientists to use.

A Phase 1 trial of a transdermal delivery system of pain reliever oxycodone has positive results. [ + ]

US researchers have isolated the multipotent progenitor cell in humans for the first time. [ + ]

A cancer cell line that is resistant to one of the newest classes of cancer treatments has been developed by researchers who already are using it to determine treatment alternatives for when it starts appearing in patients.

The monoclonal therapeutic and diagnostic antibodies market is expected to increase by 80% by 2012, according to a technical market research report by BCC Research.