Scientists at CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) in Geelong have launched a potentially revolutionary research project aimed at reducing the threat of the lethal H5N1 avian influenza virus.

Just over seven years ago, in August 1998, Dr David Wells of the Ruakua Research Centre in Hamilton announced the successful cloning of the last Enderby Island Cow, the last survivor of a the world's rarest cattle breed.

It would take only four years to completely replace today's farmed chickens with genetically modified breeds fully resistant to infection to avian influenza, according to a visiting British molecular virologist.

Brisbane RNAi gene therapy company Benitec (ASX:BLT) has granted a global, non-exclusive licence for its gene-silencing technology to a German company that develops genetically modified mice for research.

John Mattick, director of the Institute for Molecular Biosciences at the University of Queensland, has told an international RNAi conference that biology's central dogma is wrong -- at least as it applies to higher organisms.