Researchers at the Diabetes Transplant Unit at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney have developed a new technique for extracting single human embryonic stem (ES) cells, bringing them one step closer to harnessing the therapeutic potential of stem cells. [ + ]

Although government and higher education R&D expenditure are on the up, and Australia generated almost 50 per cent more scientific and technical articles in 2003 than in 1999, the number of US patents granted to Australia has fallen, a government report has revealed. [ + ]

The NZ government looks likely to extend strict controls on xenotransplantation until at least December 2006 after a bill requiring trials of the technology to be approved by the minister had its first reading in the NZ parliament yesterday. [ + ]

Brisbane company Benitec (ASX:BLT) has signed a reciprocal licensing agreement with one of its biggest competitors in the RNAi field, US company Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. [ + ]

Western Australia's well-established record-linked healthcare database had been an important innovation for research, but had also helped to better awareness of privacy issues, according to Prof Fiona Stanley, director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth. [ + ]

Australian Cancer Technology (ASX:ACU) has announced a 1:3 non-renounceable entitlements issue, aiming to raise $5.7 million at $0.13 per share. Shares in the company were trading at $0.17 at time of writing. [ + ]

When does a micronutrient become a contaminant? How much can our native species handle? Are the risks to human health fully understood? And what can we do to clean up our land and water?

UTS Professor Ashley Craig is involved in a project in the NSW Premier's spinal chord injury (SCI) research program to develop an electrical stimulus to help quadriplegics cough.

GlaxoSmithKline has missed the timetabled April 8 deadline for the filing of its defence to Biota's lawsuit, set by Victorian Supreme Court Justice Whelan in Feburary. [ + ]

The Queensland Investment Corporation has ceased to be a substantial shareholder in flu vaccine developer BioDiem (ASX:BDM), having sold more than AUD$500,000 worth of stock in the company. BioDiem raised $12 million at $1.25 per share in its IPO at the beginning of last year, and QIC took a shareholding of 5.1 per cent. At time of writing Biodiem's shares were trading at $0.44. [ + ]

The 'H' in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) could stand just as well for Hydra, the multi-headed monster of Greek myth. By the time the human immune system has decapitated one strain of the virus, it has spawned a host of novel mutants. Mutants proliferate because natural selection endowed the virus with a dodgy reverse transcriptase enzyme that introduces random errors into the genetic blueprints of newly replicated virus particle. [ + ]

A Royal Adelaide Hospital cardiovascular disease expert has told ABC-TV's current affairs program Four Corners that Merck & Co's anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx may have contributed to the deaths of many as 300 Australians from heart attack or stroke. [ + ]

Prana Biotechnology (ASX:PBT) has dropped a bombshell on the market, announcing that it has halted a UK Phase II/III clinical trial for its lead compound clioquinol (PBT-1) after it discovered that manufacturing impurities could cause side-effects including mutagenicity and neurotoxicity. [ + ]

Its US rivals' pain is proving to be AstraZeneca's gain -- at least in the short term. The withdrawal of Merck & Co's Vioxx last September has lifted demand for AstraZeneca's Nexium heartburn and ulcer treatment, and the suspension of Pfizer's Bextra may give a further boost, industry analysts said on Friday. [ + ]

A workshop on new methods of detecting and controlling the spread of one of the world's most deadly frog diseases – chytridiomycosis – was recently held at CSIRO Livestock Industries' Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) in Geelong, Victoria.