The gene, the clinic and the sex life of the dung beetle

Clinical research, the genomic revolution and the dung beetle's sneaky reproductive strategy are the main themes of the July/August issue of Australian Life Scientist, published today.

We profile Brett Neilan, microbiologist to the stars; find out why John Long was stunned like a mullet; and tell Kim Carr why the biotech industry is rather upset at him at the moment.

In our annual genetics and genomics feature, we talk to:

• UWA's Lyle Palmer about his "ludicrously ambitious" biobanking project, the Joondalup Family Health Study

• Martin Delatycki of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute about his work on Friedreich's ataxia and the frataxin protein

• Genetic pathologist David Ravine, of UWA, about epigenetics and histone deacetylase inhibitors

• Patrick Tam of the Children's Medical Research Institute and Mari Kondo of the Howard Florey Institute on ameliorating Rett syndrome with environmental enrichment

• Phil Batterham of the University of Melbourne on the sequencing of the world's most economically destructive insect pest, the cotton bollworm, and

• Leigh Simmons of UWA about the reproductive strategies of the dung beetle and how it uses the so-called sneaky f...er strategy.

We also take a look at clinical research and clinical trials, previewing the Clinical Research Excellence (CRX08) conference with Anne Kelso and Mario Pennisi; how big pharma and big biotech are wooing academia with Julian Clark and Dan Grant; and why Sydney medical device company Ventracor decided to apply for a patent on a clinical trial.

We also look at two new technologies for the path lab - MicroStreak, an automated streaking system for clinical microbiology; and PapTest, an HPV genotyping diagnostic developed by WEHI and the AGRF, commercialised by newly listed biotech Genera Biosystems and available through Gribbles Pathology.

As always, ALS features all of the latest products and methods on the market in Lab News, local and international conference dates in Events, and what to put on the shelves in Bookshop.

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