Melbourne gene-testing company Genetic Technologies (ASX:GTG, US OTC:GNTLY) has still not resolved its patent-infringement dispute with US-based Applera Corporation, despite a second round of mediation. [ + ]

A senior Biotechnology Australia bureaucrat has been grilled in a senate estimates committee by conservative Tasmanian independent senator Brian Harradine about the federal agency's attitude towards human embryonic stem cells. [ + ]

The Spectro Inc Spectroil M/F is to be supplied for the newly commissioned Queen Mary II.

As the next phase of DTI’s Measurements for Biotechnology (MfB) program to 2007 gets underway, a large DNA microarray dataset generated by an LGC-led consortium during the first phase is now freely available online at ArrayExpress, a public repository managed by the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI).

The management changes at RNAi player Benitec (ASX:BLT) continued yesterday, with the announcement that company secretary Gary Taylor had resigned as a director of the company. Taylor will remain company secretary. [ + ]

BresaGen (ASX:BGN) has obtained a non-exclusive license enabling technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the production of proteins and peptides in bacteria. [ + ]

Researchers at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) have unravelled some of the interactions between pro-survival and pro-apoptotic proteins, providing clues to the regulatory mechanisms that govern apoptosis. [ + ]

Peptech Animal Health, a subsidiary of Peptech (ASX:PTD), has successfully completed trials of a new formulation of its dog contraceptive Suprelorin which suppresses fertility in male dogs for at least 12 months. [ + ]

Researchers at the Monash Institute of Medical Research and Genetics Australia Co-operative have cloned a cow using the technique of serial nuclear transfer. [ + ]

AGEN Biomedical, a subsidiary of Brisbane-based biotech Agenix (ASX: AGX), is set to receive royalties from a newly launched test developed by US diagnostics company Biosite that uses AGEN's D-Dimer antibody. [ + ]

Sydney heart monitor firm USCOM (ASX:UCM) has received regulatory approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, allowing it to market its devices in the states. [ + ]

Amrad spin off Avexa (ASX: AVX) has raised $2.4 million in a private placement to institutions and sophisticated retail investors, and is aiming to raise up to $7.6 million more through a prospectus placement to new and existing retail and existing institutional shareholders. [ + ]

Australian private equity and venture capital investment in biotech was AUD$33 million in 2004, up from $16 million in 2003, according to a new report released by the Australian Venture Capital Association (AVCAL). [ + ]

Singapore-based Cygenics (ASX: CYN) has announced that the US Department of Defence had renewed its screening service contract with the company's US-based subsidiary Cytomatrix. [ + ]

Dr Glen Begley, the Australian who now heads the haematology and oncology R&D department at US biotech giant Amgen, has told a conference that the decline in new drug approvals was "alarming", and predicted major shakeouts in big pharma. [ + ]