US drug giant Pfizer intends to add 100 researchers in Japan by the end of 2006 to a total of 400 as part of its global push to accelerate its drug discovery drive. [ + ]

The task of identifying Earth's estimated 10 million species has daunted biologists for centuries - fewer than two million have been named. Using a technique called DNA barcoding, researchers at Rockefeller University and two Canadian institutions have uncovered four new species of North American birds.

Private Brisbane biotech VasCam has begun animal trials of a technology that would allow heart-bypass patients, or patients with blocked leg arteries, to grow their own replacement blood vessels. [ + ]

Disappointing sales in both the US and Australia, and higher marketing and administration costs have contributed to a lower half-year profit for Sirtex (ASX:SRX). Although sales revenue grew 8 per cent to $4.9 million, the company's gross profit fell to $3.57 million from $3.6 million in 2003. [ + ]

Researchers have discovered that taipan venom contains potent peptides that may prevent death from congestive heart disease. [ + ]

A new collaboration between Gribbles Molecular Science and Sequenom may pave the way for diagnostics which link pathology expertise with genetics, and could have applications in personalised medicine and foresenic identification. [ + ]

Decades ago, ranchers who moved their sheep up to the high-altitude summer pastures of the Californian Sierra found lambs were being stillborn with gross deformities, including a distorted skull with a single eye, a forebrain with the hemispheres are fused into a single mass, and lacking a medulla, a collapsed chest without lungs, and a long proboscis-like nose. [ + ]

It’s the news they have all been waiting for. After years of living under the threat of another devastating epidemic of downy mildew, a disease similar to that which caused the Irish potato famine, India’s poorest farmers have been offered a lifeline in the form of a new disease-resistant hybrid. The hybrid has been produced in record time using modern biotechnology techniques.

As an initiative of the Science Industry Action Agenda, the SIA, with support from DEST and the Victorian government, will assist 20 companies and research entities exhibit products, technologies and processes at PittCon 2005 in February 2005. The objective of showcasing Australian SETI (Science Engineering Technology Innovation) to an international audience is to:

Proteome Systems (ASX:PXL) has reported a half-year loss before tax of AUD$14.2 million, and with cash of only $11.6 million at December 31. the company is watching its pennies extremely carefully. [ + ]

Paul Hopper has resigned as CEO and managing director of Australian Cancer Technologies (ASX:ACU). [ + ]

The US National Institutes of Health annual budget is expected to increase at a much slower annual rate next year, after several years of "substantial" growth, according to a senior executive. [ + ]

CSIRO has shuffled divisions to create new business units in a bid to maximise its research capabilities, the organisation announced today. [ + ]

The first sequence data from the wallaby genome project has revealed 68 per cent similarity between the human and wallaby genes encoding NADH dehydrogenase, an essential protein in the cell's energy powerhouses, the mitochondria. [ + ]

Fewer biotechnology companies are being formed in Australia, but the companies that are being formed are more robust than their predecessors, consultancy Innovation Dynamics has found as part of its annual pulse-taking of the local biotechnology sector. [ + ]