Australian researchers urge HIV-positive people on antiretrovirals to continue practising safe sex

Centre for bionics for NSW, international conference for Victoria

Professor Alan Cowman of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute will deliver the Rubbo Oration at this year's Australian Society of Microbiology (ASM) annual meeting, being held in Melbourne next week.

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.

The Sydney Project aims to have human embryonic stem cells in clinical trials to treat type 1 diabetes in four years.

Mycobacterium ulcerans, which causes devastating ulcerous disease, isolated and fully characterised.

The New Directions in Leukaemia Research Conference starts next week and will feature John Rasko and two zinc finger transcription factors called BORIS and CTCF.

David Bowtell is investigating the role of BRCA1 and BRCA2 in ovarian cancer.

Biochemical geneticist Kevin Carpenter discusses how he helped tracked down the blip in the Bindeez beads.

Bacteria can dodge the immune response by hiding out in macrophage vacuoles nicknamed SLAPs.

Bio-Rad Laboratories' Steve Kulisch explains how synthetic 27-mer double-stranded RNAs can be designed to be processed by the Dicer endonuclease in a more predictable and efficient way.

CSIRO has come up with a new technique for repairing knee cartilage by combining chondrocytes with a biodegradable polymer.

A trial of a vaccine for stages II and III melanoma didn't turn out as expected, so the researchers tried it in stage IV patients, causing a few surprises.

The first merger of 2006 has created new opportunities in the hot field of theranostics. Ruth Beran talks with its architects about the merged company and its future plans.

To no one's surprise, CSL has become the dominant force in the Australian biotechnology sector. Graeme O'Neill learns from CSL's chief scientist, Andrew Cuthbertson, about the solid research that will drive the company in the next few years.

The research community is becoming more sophisticated in the way they approach intellectual property and industry partnerships. Ruth Beran looks at how technology transfer has changed, where it is going and the challenges it faces.

Biotechnology has provided a solution to the problem of how to get science to the market without compromising research, writes editor-in-chief Iain Scott.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw told AusBiotech 2005 about opportunities for Australian biotech to work with India.

US venture capitalist Osagie Imasogie told AusBiotech 2005 that biotech companies need to get aggressive when it comes to finding opportunities.

Pfizer's Peter Corr told the AusBiotech 2005 conference that big pharma and biotech are part of a delicate ecosystem -- and both have key roles to play.

Sydney-based Narhex has begun recruiting for an early-stage trial of an HIV drug. Helen Schuller spoke with the company's MD, John Mills, about HIV drug development, working in China, and good management.

Ruth Beran asked Sir Gustav Nossal about Australia's latest institute -- which just happens to bear his name.

Ruth Beran talks with Iatia boss Charles Laycock about the importance of being smart and flexible in designing a good biotech business model.

Cochlear boss Chris Roberts has spent 30 years at Australia's leading device companies -- but that doesn't mean he has stopped learning, as Helen Schuller discovers.

Kevin Davies spoke with Jonathan Rothberg, the founder of 454 Life Sciences, on the eve of the publication of his company's landmark paper in Nature.

Australian Biotechnology News editor-in-chief Iain Scott spoke with renowned industry analyst Cynthia Robbins-Roth about what it will take to keep biotech alive.

Producing products from human blood plasma is a lucrative business and the Chinese market provides a significant long-term opportunity, AVT Plasma's CEO tells Ruth Beran.

Ruth Beran discovers how one of Australia's great bioentrepreneurs has moved from inspiring shareholders to inspiring a nation.

Brian McNamee has been at the helm of Australia's oldest - and now biggest - life-sciences company, CSL, for 15 years. He guided the company through its public listing in 1994 and has overseen its growth to a market capitalisation of $6.8 billion. He spoke with Melissa Trudinger about CSL's research and development programs, and his vision for the company's future.

One of the leading lights of international stem cell research will be in Australia next week, as a de facto ambassador for Wales as well as to discuss his research.

Microarray technology is now a major tool available to the geneticist. The technology allows researchers to look at the expression of a vast array of genes simultaneously, and myriad applications have been found in the last few years. But deciding on the best microarray system for the needs of the research is a difficult task, with several choices available.

When you think of the Human Genome Project, images of banks of sequencing machines pumping out millions of base pairs of information comes to mind. According to Dr John Barlow, Melbourne divisional manager of the Australian Genome Research Facility, state-of-the-art sequencing is still largely electrophoresis-based. However, sequencers have come a long way since the days of pouring your own sequencing gel and using radioactive dideoxynucleotides.

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a technique that allows researchers to separate analytes based on their differential mobilities in aqueous media when an electric field is applied.

Sample capacity is at the heart of the decision on what capillary electrophoresis system best fits a lab's needs.