In 2000, a research team led by University of Queensland molecular geneticist Prof Robert Birch first inserted a gene from the plant-dwelling bacterium Pantoea dispersa into sugarcane cells, aiming to create plants that would synthesise isomaltulose, instead of sucrose.

The Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) has approved an application by Western Australian wheat breeding company Grain Biotech Australia to field-trial two genetically modified salt-tolerant wheat lines.

A new Brisbane biotech, RepliKun, has been spun out from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR), the University of Queensland and the state's health department to commercialise a novel vaccine vector, based on the Kunjin virus replicon -- the self-replicating genetic core of the mosquito-borne virus of Australia's tropics.

A molecular geneticist working on cancer at Westmead Hospital's Children's Medical Research Institute (CMRI) has made a chance discovery that throws new light on the mechanisms that immortalise cancer cells.

Australian gene therapy company Benitec (ASX:BLT) is taking its novel AIDS therapy into a Phase I clinical trial in volunteers with AIDS-related lymphoma at the City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, California.

Several Australian companies are trialling new 'natural' and synthetic adjuvants that combine potent immuno-stimulatory activity with low toxicity. Australia's biggest biotech, Melbourne's CSL (ASX:CSL), is boosting its experimental vaccines with its Iscomatrix adjuvant system, a phospholipid-cholesterol formulation containing a purified saponin extract from the bark of the South American tree Quillaja saponaria.

Brisbane biotech Benitec (ASX:BLT) shares were up 8 per cent to $0.65 today after it announced it had granted a worldwide, non-exclusive licence to Panomics, of Redwood City in California. The licence allows Panomics to make and sell products that exploit Benitec's patented DNA-directed RNAi gene-silencing technology.

Queensland gene-therapy company Benitec Ltd (ASX:BLT) has licensed-in a novel, non-viral new technology from Stanford University that delivers prolonged RNAi-induced gene-silencing in mammalian cells.

Genetically modified canola may be busted in Australia, but GM cotton is booming -- new Bollgard II varieties, doubly protected against bollworm attack, will make up 60 per cent of Australia's total crop in season 2004-05.

Virax's share price has soared after the company disclosed that French biotech company Transgene recently reported promising interim results from Phase II trials of a cancer therapeutic vaccine based on the Virax's Co-X-Gene technology.

The prospect of Australia's cotton industry returning to the continent's well-watered tropics has enticed a new player to test its transgenic wares against the insect monsters that ate the Ord.