Australian bioindustry has a sweeping wish list of tax reform measures it desperately wants to see implemented. The trouble is, forcing through significant changes to the national tax structure has the same torturously long gestation period as developing a major new drug. [ + ]

The biotech shake-up will intensify in 2003 but the horizon looks inviting on the far side of the wave of mergers expected to roll through the sector over the next 12 to 24 months. That's the view of Prof Peter Andrews, a leading member of the generation which has dramatically reshaped Australian bioscience in the last 15 years and a man who boasts a good track record in sculpting positive environments for young biotechs. [ + ]

The growing sophistication of data visualisation applications has been a boon for pharmaceutical and biotech researchers across the life and chemical sciences spectrum. Visualisation platforms help computational chemists to model molecules in drug discovery environments and genomic researchers to stitch useable information together from a confusing tangle of data held in different gene sequence databases. [ + ]

Advances in techniques for growing neurons, stem cell research, genetics, proteomics and massively improved capabilities in imaging are opening up previously undreamed-of avenues to treat sufferers of everything from epilepsy, stroke, chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, paralysis and psychosis. [ + ]

Much to the chagrin of those actually at the coalface, the technical achievements of our leading scientific institutions and successful partnering with industry to bring them to market have long been tainted by the myth that not enough is being done and other countries are doing it better. [ + ]

A team of researchers at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has developed new instrumentation and a unique approach to obtain the most complete protein analysis of any organism to date

The land of the red 'roo is a long hop from just about everywhere else in the world, so travel costs loomed large in Dr Phil Batterham's analysis of the cost of staging the world's largest genefest in Melbourne next year. [ + ]

The future is hammering on the ancient oak doors of two of the world's oldest biotechnology industries, beer and winemaking, both citadels of tradition and conservatism. In Australia, the wine industry is wide awake, and cautiously surveying the landscape for longer-term opportunities emerging from gene technology. The Australian wine industry, which has transformed itself during the past 30 years with a slew of innovations in viticulture, and new winemaking technologies, is enjoying the first fruits of the gene technology revolution -- but is in no hurry to grow GM vines. [ + ]

There is a complex and ongoing battle between humans and insect pests, according to Dr Phil Batterham, a researcher in the University of Melbourne's Department of Genetics and the deputy director and program leader at the ARC-funded Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research. Many chemical and biological weapons have been devised to control and prevent insects from attacking crops, but insects are highly adaptive and sooner or later they evolve their way around every weapon that is used against them. [ + ]

The world now has detailed gene catalogues, maps and DNA sequences for two distantly related eutherian mammals: the mouse, Mus musculus, a rodent, and a large-brained African primate, Homo sapiens. Where to now? Prof Jenny Graves believes that, to achieve the maximum yield about the deep genetic history of the world's mammals, it should be a marsupial -- specifically, a kangaroo. [ + ]

As CEO of Adelaide's BresaGen, Dr John Smeaton is no doubt familiar with the ancient Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times". [ + ]

Listen carefully and one can almost hear new biotechnology companies sprouting from Australia's bioscience research landscape. [ + ]

While scientific discovery is often regarded as absolute, the rules of law seem much more fluid, governed by a mish-mash of regulations and precedents across myriad jurisdictions ensuring that even success in gaining patents or defending intellectual property in court is no long-term guarantee in biotech. [ + ]

With its long hours of sunlight, the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area of NSW produces the highest yields of any rice-growing region in the world, but the water-hungry crop requires around 20 megalitres of water to produce a tonne of rice. CSIRO Plant Industry molecular geneticist Dr Liz Dennis believes new rice varieties bred for cold tolerance could reduce that figure by 30 per cent, yielding substantial savings for the Murray-Darling system's over-extended water reserves. [ + ]

Next year, 2003 marks the 50th anniversary of an epochal moment in human history: Watson and Crick's solving of the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule. It's also the year that will bring many of the biggest names in world genetics to Melbourne for the 19th International Genetics Congress, among them at least three Nobel laureates, including James Watson, co-discoverer of the immortal coil, and an immortal of modern science in his own lifetime. [ + ]