The new Gene Technology Access Centre (GTAC), which opened its doors in Melbourne today, aims to "blast away" some of the mythology of the scientific enterprise, according to one of its founders. [ + ]

Medica Holdings officially became Cytopia (ASX:CYT) this week, as it took the next big step from being a biotech investment company to a biotech company in its own right. [ + ]

Melbourne-based Anadis (ASX:ANX) is making the best of its lofty share price, announcing today that it will issue 10.9 million shares at AUD$0.30, raising $4.25 million. [ + ]

Perth biotech Solbec Pharmaceuticals (ASX:SPB) is confident of taking its promising cancer drug SBP002 into Phase II clinical trials after a midstream review of data from its current phase 1 trial. [ + ]

Unlisted Brisbane biotech Xenome has initiated a Phase I clinical trial of its lead candidate for treating neuropathic pain, Xen2174. [ + ]

Mixed results from recent IPOs in the Australian and international biotech sectors have not daunted several local biotechs' plans to list on the ASX in coming months. [ + ]

The National Stem Cell Centre has signed a collaboration agreement with Singapore-based ES Cell International (ESI) to develop new human embryonic stem cell-based treatments for diabetes and other diseases. [ + ]

Evolutionary biologists talk about a perpetual arms race between predators and prey -- an unwinnable war in which one combatant achieves a transient advantage before the other develops a counter-measure. But it seems that at least one native hardwood of Australia's tropical north found a game-ending defence against termites that keeps its wood nice long after it expires. [ + ]

Epitan (ASX: EPT) has acquired three dermatological products in its push to become a specialty dermatology pharmaceuticals company. [ + ]

The Burrill Australia Life Science Fund has raised AUD$150 of its planned $200 million venture capital fund in just over a year -- but more than half of it comes from overseas institutions. [ + ]

A softening market and a low share price have had an impact on PanBio's (ASX:PBO) recently completed share purchase plan offering to shareholders, which has raised just under AUD$1 million out of a possible $4.2 million. [ + ]

Next year's Lorne conferences, the traditional summer high point for Australian life science researchers, will not be held at Lorne. [ + ]

Queensland's biotechnology industry is beginning to capitalise on southern discomfort over genetically modified (GM) organisms, with the Cooperative Research Centre for Pest Animal Control (CRC-PAC) shifting its research team from Gungahlin, in Canberra, to the Institute of Molecular Biology at the University of Queensland. [ + ]

Modern genetics is finally laying to rest some of the arguments about the expansion of humans out of Africa and across the world, says Washington University professor Alan Templeton, who presented data from his work on human genetic evolution at this week's Genetics Society of Australia conference in Melbourne. [ + ]

Nanotechnology company Psivida (ASX: PSD) has had its research applying its BioSilicon technology to drug delivery, diagnostics, orthopaedics and tissue engineering recognised with a 2004 Excellence in Research Award from US consulting group Frost & Sullivan. [ + ]