From institutes with fewer than 100 staff to the CSIRO with several thousand, the vast majority of Australia's life scientists are employed by research institutes. Among the dozens of research institutes found across the country are numerous internationally renowned centres of scientific excellence like the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI), small focused institutes like Melbourne's Bionic Ear Institute and government-owned agricultural institutes like the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI). [ + ]

Prof Peter Rowe, the current Lorimer Dods Professor and Director of the Children's Medical Research Institute (CMRI), Westmead, NSW, is gearing up for his final few years in this position. [ + ]

With apologies to Kermit, TV's most famous amphibian, it's sometimes easier being green. In the perennial quest for funding, those Australian research institutes with ivy on their walls are doing best. [ + ]

Some of the laboratory managers at Sydney's Centenary Institute are concerned that one of the more challenging aspects of their role is about to get harder. The Federal government's Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR), which issues licenses and certification to research institutes working with genetically modified organisms, has proposed introducing charges to recover its running expenses. If this happens, the research institute will have to bear the cost. "It would be a whole new area of funding which would have to come out of the institute's infrastructure budget because it would not be allowed for in other areas of funding," says Dr Nick Pearce, the institute's business development manager. [ + ]

It is a question of making haste slowly for Australia's small circle of private companies dedicated to selling bioinformatics-related goods and services. The good news is that new arrivals are seeping into the sector while established players are consolidating their positions and looking forward optimistically. [ + ]

The history of the International Congress of Genetics goes hand in hand with the history of genetics. [ + ]

A high-fidelity spectrometric system for studying the behaviour of drops and particles in industrial flame reactors has been constructed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

A University at Buffalo chemist has developed a new, high-throughput method for obtaining nuclear magnetic resonance data that can potentially performing orders of magnitude faster than conventional methods

As a nation, Australia has often lagged behind bigger and better-funded countries when it comes to seizing on a new technology and taking it to new places. But with the emerging nanotechnology industry, Australia is finding itself in a position of relative strength, despite our size. [ + ]

If mass spectrometry didn't exist, biologists would surely have had to invent it. Mass spectrometry has put the pep into peptide sequencing -- there's no quicker nor more accurate way of doing it. [ + ]

For the second of our two-part series examining Australia's new laws on embryonic stem cell research and human cloning, Pete Young asked medical researchers, IVF clinics and companies developing stem cell-related products for their views on the impact of the legislation. [ + ]

Genomics is experiencing its own manifestation of computing technology's Moore's law of cost and efficiency, says Prof Richard Gibbs: the volume of sequence data is increasing by around 10-fold every year as sequencing costs continue to plummet. [ + ]

In the first part of a two-part series about Australia's new stem cell laws, Pete Young looks at the NHMRC's role and who will need to apply for a licence to do the research. [ + ]

As the new year begins, market analysts are sounding the same warnings that they did in 2002 -- that Australian biotechnology companies must consider strategies like mergers and acquisitions and alliances to survive. [ + ]

Small, irregularly shaped samples can present difficulties for the established methods of metal analysis. Laser-ablation ICP-MS offers accuracy and precision independent of sample form