Diagnostics company Panbio has announced a strategic alliance with Canadian-based medical diagnostics instrumentation group Adaltis to develop automated diagnostic products. [ + ]

Just weeks after a new CEO was appointed, embattled bioseparations company Gradipore has lost almost its entire board of directors in a shareholder-driven rebellion against the management of the company. [ + ]

CSIRO Plant Industry's leader of cotton research in Narrabri NSW, Dr Greg Constable, is Australia's smartest scientist, according to The Bulletin magazine.

Ventracor (ASX: VCR) has implanted its "artificial heart" device into a third patient as part of the pilot trial being conducted at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. [ + ]

Sydney-based devices company AtCor Medical is readying itself to make a major push into the US market with its range of cardiovascular diagnostic devices. [ + ]

Virax (ASX:VHL) has received approval from the US State Department to participate in a collaboration to develop a modified smallpox vaccine. [ + ]

Scientists at Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Research Centre have demonstrated an ingenious strategy for boosting and focusing the body's immune defences that causes dramatic regression of tumours in mice. [ + ]

Prima BioMed (ASX:PRR) subsidiary Arthron believes it has found a new way of blocking the inflammatory reaction responsible for the crippling autoimmune disease rheumatoid arthritis. [ + ]

Benitec (ASX:BLT) has developed technology allowing simultaneous disabling of multiple genes through RNA interference. [ + ]

An ancient fence, its posts hewn from local trees, caught Matt Kealley's eye during a bioprospecting expedition in north Queensland's monsoonal woodlands a few years ago. [ + ]

Perth-based devices company Visiomed (ASX:VSG), formerly known as Xcell Diagnostics, has received TGA approval for a hair analysis system which uses the same computerised image analysis platform technology as its skin cancer diagnostic system. [ + ]

Adelaide biotech Bionomics (ASX:BNO) has filed a provisional patent on a new method of determining the prognosis for women with early-stage breast cancer. [ + ]

Diagnostic company Cellestis has completed an amendment to its distribution agreement with Japanese company Nichirei, covering price and minimum volumes for its second generation TB test QuantiFERON-TB GOLD. [ + ]

Australian Cancer Technology (ASX:ACU) has completed the acquisition of a range of nutraceuticals designed specifically for cancer patients undergoing treatment. [ + ]

New Zealand's biotechnology industry will emerge into the sunlight next week, after the NZ Parliament voted decisively to end the nation's moratorium on field trials of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). [ + ]