The successful projects under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) have been announced, including the establishment of a national mouse phenomics network, a plant phenomics network and a national medical imaging facility.

The main message to come out of a survey of Australian genomics and proteomics companies, conducted by health care analysts Frost and Sullivan, was that the industry needs more collaboration between academia, companies and those providing funding to engender investor confidence.

The tract of bushland near Narrandera, in southern NSW, where Brisbane natural pesticide developer BioProspect (ASX:BPO) is field-trialling its promising termiticide AP778 teems with voracious termites.

In a rare example of cross-pollination, the University of Sydney and the University of Western Sydney have pooled the IP from three advanced research projects on inflammation and cancer, and spun out a new biomedical company, Medical Therapies.

Premier Peter Beattie has announced Queensland will commit $7 million towards a scale-up manufacturing facility to make drugs for pre-clinical and clinical trials. He said the funding would be used to encourage international and national investment.

Federal education, training and science minister Brendan Nelson has named Dr Jade Sharples as his new science advisor.

Life science companies - from start-ups to listed biotechs - featured highly in the latest round of Commonwealth R&D Start funding, it was revealed yesterday.

Evolutionary biologists talk about a perpetual arms race between predators and prey -- an unwinnable war in which one combatant achieves a transient advantage before the other develops a counter-measure. But it seems that at least one native hardwood of Australia's tropical north found a game-ending defence against termites that keeps its wood nice long after it expires.

An ancient fence, its posts hewn from local trees, caught Matt Kealley's eye during a bioprospecting expedition in north Queensland's monsoonal woodlands a few years ago.