Prof Jennifer Marshall Graves' long-awaited Kangaroo Genome Project is up and hopping after last week's federal government announcement of funding for six new Australian Research Council Centres. [ + ]

In a dramatic turnaround from last year's $14.4 million loss, Amrad (ASX:AML) has posted an inaugural after-tax profit of AUD$7.4 million for the 2002-2003 financial year, which includes $1.2 million operating profit in addition to the one-off profit realised from the sale of Amrad's Richmond property. [ + ]

Metabolic Pharmaceuticals (ASX:MBP) is today heralding a recently finalised exercise of listed options had brought the company AUD$12 million. [ + ]

EpiTan (ASX:EPT) has raised nearly AUD$7.4 million in a share placement of 14.5 million shares priced at $0.51, providing cash reserves to see the company through to the end of 2004. [ + ]

Melbourne-based drug development and manufacturing company Institute of Drug Technology Australia (ASX:IDT) has posted record revenues of AUD$25.8 million for the 2002-2003 financial year. [ + ]

Genetic Technologies (ASX:GTG) has raised AUD$10 million in a share placement to institutional and professional investors, managed by Sydney boutique investment bank EG Capital. [ + ]

Gene silencing specialist Benitec has denied rumours that it is to relocate from its IMB (Institute for Molecular Bioscience) base in Queensland to the US, claiming that North American media misreported the situation. [ + ]

Drug discovery biotech Antisense Therapeutics (ASX:ANP) has added AUD$5 million to its coffers with the placement of 38.5 million new shares to the institutional and specialist investor market. [ + ]

Researchers at the Prince of Wales Hospital have established a link between breast cancer and the human form of a mouse virus. [ + ]

As part of its strategy to move into the Asian region, Norwood Abbey has appointed a new commercial partner to market its range of laser assisted drug delivery products. [ + ]

Peptech is to lose its managing director Stephen Kwik in the first glimpse of what chairman Mel Bridges has dubbed a "broadening and deepening of scope" for the therapeutic peptide and protein biotech. [ + ]

Chair of the Australian Synchrotron Research Program (ASRP) and ANSTO CEO, Professor Helen Garnett, has announced six leading scientists from Australia and overseas will each received fellowship grants of around $70,000 per year to conduct research into improved cancer treatments, forensics, molecular biology, minerals, synthetics and technology.

pSiMedica, a subsidiary of Perth-based pSivida (ASX: PSD), has signed an agreement with the UK-based McComb Foundation to evaluate its nanostructured porous silica material BioSilicon as a tissue-engineering substrate. [ + ]

A just-released BioForum report by business watchers PricewaterhouseCoopers has talked up the life sciences sector, based on a strong Q4 performance and positive investor sentiment thanks to better than average results compared to the five previous quarters. [ + ]

Buoyed by the data from a recent research paper out of Cambridge University, gene discovery biotech AGT Biosciences has announced it has broadened its patent covering PARL (formerly gene AGT203) to cover cancer, aging and some other diseases. [ + ]