First there was golden rice, a genetically modified variant of the world's number two cereal, designed to prevent blindness and ill health in an estimated 400 million malnourished people in Asia and Africa, whose monotonous diet of rice leaves them vulnerable to blindness and ill health. Now Western Australian company Grain Biotech Australia has engineered an experimental wheat, the world's number one cereal crop, that could help by keeping over-nourished Westerners in the pink of health. [ + ]

Dr Jeremy Burdon is to succeed Dr Jim Peacock as chief of CSIRO Plant Industry, the organisation's chief executive, Dr Geoff Garrett, announced today. [ + ]

Cryptome Pharmaceuticals, the first in a series of Australian biotechs scheduled to float in the next few months, made its debut on the ASX today with a starting price of AUD$0.25 and a market capitalisation of $12.6 million, after raising $6.6 million in its IPO. [ + ]

Prof Garth Cooper, CEO of Auckland biopharmaceutical company Protemix, aims to make his company the first New Zealand biotech to take a discovered compound all the way to market. [ + ]

Queensland company Xenome has received a AUD$3.2 million R&D Start grant from the Federal government to accelerate the development of its lead chronic pain drug, Xen2174 into early clinical trials. [ + ]

Researchers at the Joint Proteomics Laboratory (JPSL) at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research are using a new proteomics technology to remove common high-abundance proteins from plasma before analysis. [ + ]

Diabetes researchers at Sydney's Garvan Institute have identified a gene that plays a key role in cellular sensitivity to insulin -- and which could be a target for anti-obesity drugs. [ + ]

Dunedin biotech Blis Technologies has opened a portal into a potential AUD$200 million market by signing a deal with Auckland-based Asia-Pacific Biotech Distributors to take its antibacterial Throat Guard into China. [ + ]

Small companies within Australia's growing life sciences industry are starting to compute like the big boys, thanks to a growing investment in the sector by companies keen to feed its hunger for high-performance computing (HPC) systems. [ + ]

CSIRO Plant Industry in Canberra has wound up a decade-long project to develop a genetically modified field pea resistant to the destructive pea weevil, because poultry and pigs fed on the GM pea dropped about 10 per cent in productivity. [ + ]

In one of the largest research projects of its type, leading Australian scientists will concentrate on the nation's future energy requirements which could lead to Australia developing one of the world's first hydrogen economies.

Mayne Group (ASX:MAY) has continued its move into the US oncology market with the AUD$9.37 million purchase of two injectable oncology products from US firm Xanodyne Pharmacal. [ + ]

An ambitious project is underway in Australia to define and isolate renal stem cells so that they can be used to either repair or regenerate a kidney. [ + ]

Two of Melbourne's leading biotechs, Metabolic Pharmaceuticals (ASX:BBP) and Biota Holdings (ASX:BTA) have both announced successful share issues. [ + ]

Melbourne drug-reengineering company Eiffel Technologies (ASX:EIF) says the results of a new pre-clinical study in an animal model confirm the early promise of insulin 'nanomised' by its proprietary supercritical fluid technology. [ + ]