Former telecommunications company Select-Tel is the latest to venture into biotech, signing a memorandum of understanding with Melbourne's MacFarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health to commercialise several projects from the Institute. [ + ]

A proposal by Queensland Premier Peter Beattie to join biotechnology forces with Victoria and NSW is receiving a positive response from NSW Premier Bob Carr. [ + ]

Some individuals born into families with a history of epilepsy may be doubly, even triply cursed, according a new theoretical model of the world's most common inherited brain disorder. [ + ]

Queensland-based BioProspect has formed a collaboration with US company Apath to screen BioProspect's natural plant extract library for potential antiviral therapeutics for hepatitis C virus (HCV) and other pathogenic viruses. [ + ]

The prospect of treating obese humans with leptin, a natural appetite suppressant secreted by fat cells, is looking increasingly slim after a new study by a Melbourne researcher. [ + ]

The Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) has announced Associate Professor Roy Tasker from the University of Western Sydney as the new recipient of the Chemical Education Division Medal, the highest award in Australia for chemical education.

Shares in drug discovery company Autogen rose more than 15 per cent today after the company announced that nine new genes involved in diabetes and obesity were affected by exercise. [ + ]

A 15 per cent staff cut at Sydney-based listed biotech Gradipore has been given an enthusiastic tick of approval by investors. [ + ]

Scientists at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney have succeeded in creating new brain cells in mice, using adult stem cells, in a move which has the potential to eliminate some effects of multiple sclerosis (MS) and related illnesses.

Brisbane biotech Progen Industries has reinforced the already significant contribution of its contract drug manufacturing arm by signing an agreement with US-based Sequella. [ + ]

Researchers at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital have found for the first time that adult stem cells can be differentiated into the white matter forming cells of the brain, the oligodendrocytes. [ + ]

A proposal for an Australian-based Kangaroo Genome Project has missed out on the latest round of Australian Research Council Research Centres of Excellence Grants, announced late last month. [ + ]

Fulfilling a promise made to shareholders at its annual general meeting in November, Adelaide-based >GroPep has ended 2002 free of debt and with $AUD5.6 million cash in the bank, newly hired CFO Tony Mitchell said today. [ + ]

Australia will join 20 other nations in a $1 billion, 10-year, global effort to assess the status of marine life worldwide.

A University of Queensland team at the Princess Alexandra Hospital is believed to be the first in the world to find a mechanism to turn off an auto-immune disease, once it has started.