Biotechnology companies need to widen the audiences they pitch their messages to, industry analyst David Blake, of BioShares, told attendees at a BioMelbourne Network breakfast meeting today. [ + ]

Melbourne drug re-engineering company Eiffel Technologies Ltd (ASX:EIF) has received a pleasant surprise from the Federal Government: a $2.2 million R&D Start grant. [ + ]

Despite a decrease in revenues and an increase in net loss to AUD$1.3 million, veterinary biotechnology company Imugene (ASX:IMU) has come a long way in its first year as a biotechnology company, according to chairman Graham Dowland, who said it was a "tremendous formative year." [ + ]

Microscopy company Iatia (ASX:IAT) released its annual results last Friday with a brutally honest assessment of their performance over the 2002-2003 year. [ + ]

Brisbane's Peplin Biotech Ltd (ASX:PEP) has had a good week, reporting a promising new indication for its lead anti-cancer compound PEP005, and promising activity from a new compound of undisclosed provenance. [ + ]

Adelaide-based biotechnology company BresaGen Ltd (ASX:BGN) has confirmed a consolidated loss for 2002-03 AUD$13.95 million, which it flagged last month, up from $11.86 million in 2002. [ + ]

Founded as a joint venture between Californian AIDS vaccine company VaxGen and South Korean investors, manufacturing company Celltrion is being developed to provide large-scale mammalian cell culture manufacturing for the biopharmaceutical industry. [ + ]

Monash University researchers have solved the crystal structure of the protein suspected to be the focus of the autoimmune attack that destroys the fatty insulating sheath around neurons in the brain in multiple sclerosis (MS). [ + ]

Three of Western Australia's major research institutions have formed a united energy research partnership intended to benefit the operations of the global oil and gas industry with leading-edge practical research.

The use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports continues to be a source of serious concern for both national and international sports organisations.

A team of researchers from Imperial College London, the Charing Cross Hospital and University College London have identified a protein that they believe could be used to protect against neuro-degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, motor neurone diseases and the brain damage caused by strokes.

By mixing two solids, chemists can - as if by magic - create a liquid that is non-toxic and biodegradable: yet it can dissolve a range of materials. They have produced a series of such liquids that can be used to substitute the strong and corrosive acids traditionally used as solvents in many industrial chemical reactions.

Monash University researchers, using synchrotron radiation, have unravelled the structure of a protein that plays a crucial role in multiple sclerosis (MS), a finding that could eventually lead to the development of better drugs for treating this disease.

Perth-based nanotechnology company pSivida plans to list its UK subsidiary pSiMedica next year. [ + ]

They're not life as we know it, not even life at all. A viroid is just a naked, sub-microscopic loop of single-stranded RNA -- a virus in the buff. But despite their simplicity, viroids possess a primeval weapon that can devastate crops- a weapon that of recent and great interest to molecular biologists. [ + ]