Sequencing instrument company Applied Biosystems has joined the call for a marsupial genome project to be conducted in Australia rather than the US. [ + ]

The recent SARS epidemic highlighted the ability of Singapore's science community to rise to the occasion, according to the director of the two-year-old Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), Edison Liu at the XIX International Congress of Genetics on Wednesday. [ + ]

The risk of a SARS pandemic sweeping the world appears to be over, to the great relief of international health authorities who have been awaiting another pandemic of the magnitude of the Spanish 'flu pandemic of 1918-19, which killed an estimated 20 million people on six continents. [ + ]

The relationship between vegetables such as peas and beans and nitrogen-fixing bacteria is even closer than previously thought, with bacteria acting similar to an intrinsic part of the plant, according to research undertaken in England.

Dr David Botstein, of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University, was yesterday awarded the prestigious 2003 Peter Gruber Genetics prize. [ + ]

Across large areas of the southern United States, the most social primate on Planet Earth has come into painful conflict with one of the world's most unlovable social insects - the South American fire ant, Solenopsis victor. [ + ]

The risks of developing cancer as a side-effect of gene therapy were outweighed by the potential benefit to the patients, one of the scientists involved in gene therapy clinical trials said yesterday at the XIX International Congress of Genetics. [ + ]

Genomics expert Prof David Botstein says it's a fact that biologists would rather share a toothbrush than a gene's name -- the yeast gene that he knows as ABC1 is apparently known to fruit fly geneticists as 'bride of frizzled disco'. [ + ]

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) shows promise as a gene-targeting vector for repair of mutations, particularly in cell populations that can be treated ex vivo and reinfused back into the host, according to David Russell, a professor at the University of Washington. [ + ]

Bribane diagnostic biotech Panbio has become the first company ever to rate US FDA approval for a West Nile virus (WNV) immunoassay diagnostic kit. [ + ]

NSW’s BioFirst awards have attracted two top overseas researchers to the state, in the first of this year’s appointments for overseas experts. [ + ]

WA biotech EQiTX has been granted a US patent on its Gingerol pain and inflammation compound. [ + ]

Amgen, the world's No. 1 biotechnology company, said it has asked US regulators to approve the sale of its rheumatoid arthritis drug, Enbrel, to treat the skin disorder psoriasis. [ + ]

Complementary medicine giant Mayne Health has been caught out in the warehouse department, with some 650 bottles of TGA-banned and recalled products being accidentally delivered to retailers across Australia. [ + ]

A University of Melbourne research team has overturned 30 years of dogma on how a cell transports calcium, revealing potential insights into cancer and neuro-degenerative diseases.