The NSW government has pledged $2.6 million over the next four years towards the establishment of a new business alliance created by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, the Westmead research hub and the Hunter Medical Research Institute. [ + ]

Pharmacists have the opportunity to take on a greater role in patient education and management as the number of biotechnology-derived drugs entering the market increases, but they need to be proactive about it, Dr Ines Krass of the University of Sydney's Faculty of Pharmacy told at the annual meeting of the Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association today. [ + ]

A bioinformatics tool developed by Melbourne company Autogen to search public domain gene databases for specific genes of interest will be made available to academic researchers for free. [ + ]

Between the broad brushstrokes of the Federal government's four National Research Priorities, announced last Friday by Prime Minister John Howard, there is room for a major contribution from Australia's biotechnology and biomedical researchers. [ + ]

Thousands of years of trial and error have led to humans lacing their shoes in the strongest way possible, Monash University mathematician Dr Burkard Polster has found. But we haven't adopted the best way of tying laces into knots - many of us still use knots that are more likely to come undone.

Sydney-based company Peptech has flagged the imminent approval of another of its anti-TNF antibody patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). [ + ]

Australian stem-cell researchers are elated at yesterday's decisive Senate vote in favour of a Bill to permit research on stem cells from surplus IVF embryos. [ + ]

Australian companies should start talking to the US Food and Drug Administration as early as possible, according to Kendle International's VP of regulatory affairs, Dr Richard Schwen. [ + ]

The Australian Academy of Science has welcomed the Federal Government's announcement of the national research priorities. The priorities are exciting, comprehensive and will capture the imagination and support of the Australian community, it claims.

Whether it was your destiny to be tall or short, blonde or redheaded, fair or olive-skinned, it's no secret that your genes made you that way. But exactly what parts of DNA determine people's physical characteristics is still a mystery to scientists, and one that researchers based at The Queensland University of Technology are trying to solve.

Natural products provide a validated basis for protein-drug interactions that should be exploited as a tool for rational drug design, Griffith University's Prof Ron Quinn told delegates at the Australian Health and Medical Research Congress last week. [ + ]

A group of Australian researchers are pursuing ground-breaking work on receptors in muscle tissue which play an unexpectedly important part in regulating cholesterol levels. [ + ]

Australian researchers have the opportunity to participate in the Sixth Framework Program for European Research and Technological Development (FP6), but they should think hard about the value they can bring to collaborative projects and be prepared to come with their own funding, according to presenters at a special symposium held by the Australasian Research Management Society at the Australian Health and Medical Research Congress (AHMRC) last week. [ + ]

An Australian research study published this week in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science explains why current drugs don't work on a common, inherited form of epilepsy -- and points the way to a new class of epilepsy therapeutics. [ + ]

Australian Biotechnology News and Factiva, a Dow Jones and Reuters Company, concluded an agreement this week that will see ABN's content distributed globally to over 1.5 million desktops. [ + ]