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

Exhibitors on the Australian Pavilion at BIO 2008 in San Diego

WA company Epichem and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative are collaborating to develop new drugs to treat African sleeping sickness and similar, forgotten diseases.

NSW set to lift GM crop moratorium, while Victoria faces a tougher test.

As it begins Phase IIa clinical trials, Mesoblast is riding high: its share price is climbing, its market capitalisation is booming and all that promise seems to be coming good.

Evolution is being harnessed for modern drug development by West Australian biotech Phylogica.

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.

Bradley Smith, executive director of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS), has kindly provided us with a breakdown of the individual projects receiving money through NCRIS.

Epichem, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PharmAust (ASX:PAA), along with Murdoch University and Monash University's Centre for Drug Candidate Optimisation, have been offered up to AUD$480,000 from the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDI).

The Western Australian branch of industry association AusBiotech has held a forum to examine the issues facing agricultural biotechnology in the state, and the challenges that must be faced if it is to move forward.

Melbourne and California-based ChemGenex Pharmaceuticals (ASX:CXS) has been awarded two linkage project grants worth AUD$525,000 in cash from the Australian Research Council (ARC) over the next three years.