WA to pull together research institutes in $360 million power precinct

Two West Australian high school students place highly in international biotech competition

The ongoing drama that is debate over the hobbit fossils of Flores has been reignited by a recent paper suggesting H. floresiensis is actually H. sapiens suffering from cretinism. An interesting theory or a 'travesty'?

Australia's Nanostructural Analysis Network Organisation (NANO) was established four years ago to provide top-tier microscopy services for Australian scientists.

In five years' time, Australian researchers aim to know what causes both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, with the help of a new national genetic database that has been set up to collect and study DNA from 3000 Australian families with diabetic children.

In many places in the world, 'biotechnology' only means agricultural biotech. The same can't be said in Australia, where GM technology is a dirty word. But could economics and technology force Australia to change its views on biotech crops to keep up with the rest of the world?

Western Australia's well-established record-linked healthcare database had been an important innovation for research, but had also helped to better awareness of privacy issues, according to Prof Fiona Stanley, director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth.

Plastic surgeon Prof Fiona Wood, co-founder of Perth-based biotech Clinical Cell Culture (ASX:CCE), has been honoured for her role in developing a living spray-on skin to treat burns victims by being named the 2005 Australian of the Year.

Genetic Technologies (ASX:GTG) has sealed its broad strategic alliance with Perth-based biotech research agency, the CY O'Connor ERADE Village Foundation (CYO), foreshadowed in October last year.

The news from a pre-clinical trial of Perth biopharma Solbec Pharmaceuticals' (ASX:SBP) lead anti-cancer compound SBO002 could hardly be more positive.