That was the week that was

The big news this week was of course the rise in official interest rates, but the link between this and the world of life sciences is so tenuous that even I can't join the dots. Apologies.

The real news this week was of course the report in Nature about the fossil find in Kenya that raised the possibility that two of our ancestral species, Homo habilis and Homo erectus, were not so much related in a straight-forward linear way but may have lived side by side for half a million years.

For the more vulgar among us the speculations on sexual dimorphism that the discovery has raised are equally as interesting as the great big chunk of knowledge we have just gained. It seems that the H. erectus skull found by the Leakeys is significantly smaller than comparable fossils found in the vicinity.

The researchers speculate that this disparity in size leads the interested observer to suspect that our nearest ancestor displayed behaviours that would not go down to well with those amongst us who insist on the god-given primacy of monogamy.

Then again, the idea that our direct ancestor may well have displayed behaviour more commonly seen in close relatives such as the polygamous gorillas and baboons than the more monogamous gibbons explains a hell of a lot when one has experienced the joys of the local pub of a Friday evening.

Also this week we saw a number of interesting moves on the biotechnology front. This is a rare occurrence of course, considering that even minor scientific breakthroughs happen a mile a minute on a global scale and yet the biotech industry is characterised by such tiny increments in progress that we all despair.

Here in the ANZ region, however, two of our most notable mid-sized biotech companies, Peptech and EvoGenix, have decided to get together. Both work predominantly in the antibody field, which everyone is keen on but which is yet to really rock and roll on the world stage, and so it makes a great deal of sense for the duo to combine forces. One suspects this sort of rationalisation will be a much more common occurrence in future.

We also saw two even smaller companies - NuSep and Minomic - solidify a relationship that has risen out of their near location. Minomic used to rent space from NuSep's parent, Life Therapeutics, but has now moved across the road in one of Sydney's more leafy suburbs and is close to commercialisation on a number of fronts, including prostate cancer and type II diabetes.

NuSep is, amongst other ventures, currently trialling a nifty little machine called the SpermSorter, for assisted reproduction, and Minomic is working on a protein-based diagnostic for prostate cancer that may well see a significant reduction in unnecessary experiences of the dreaded DRE. Keep an eye on these two very interesting companies in future. I'll have a story on both in the next issue of ALS.

Finally, we ourselves have gone global. Google has belatedly discovered what a wondrous resource ALS is and has started picking up our stories for its news alerts. Yes, ALS is set to conquer the known universe. What took the world so long?

The team here at ALS headquarters is just about to wrap up the next issue, but there is still time to get involved. Editorial is pretty much closed but if you are interested in advertising in the next issue, give Ric Hudson a call on 02 9902 2732. We are covering the ComBio and AusBiotech conferences this time, along with a look at microscopy and image analysis and all of our regular features. If you're not in it, you can't win it.

If you would like to comment on anything you've read, or to tell me to please be quiet in future, or if you would like to complain about how late this bulletin has arrived in the last fortnight, please send me an email at kate_mcdonald@idg.com.au. I promise to reply ... eventually.

Kate