A young biotech company founded by two Macquarie University scientists has attracted $2 million in funding from venture capital firm Nanyang Ventures. [ + ]

Melbourne-based company Cellestis has signed an agreement with Danish company Statens Serum Institut that it said signals a new era in tuberculosis testing and research. [ + ]

Sydney-based company Proteome Systems has teamed up with big US services company Charles River Laboratories to create a new joint venture company, Charles River Proteomics Services. [ + ]

In a significant advance, scientists have discovered some of the genes responsible for the development of insecticide resistance in mosquitoes. The findings will play an important role in combating the world's biggest killer, malaria.

Reported plans to sack up to 26 staff from CSIRO's Division of Land and Water have touched off warnings about the organisation's long-term health from Federal Opposition and union sources. [ + ]

The 2002 ASBMB Lemberg Medal has special significance for its recipient, Prof Philip Board of the Australian National University. [ + ]

The world is not running out of oil, according to Montana State University microbiologist Prof Bill Costerton -- it's just too difficult to get the vast amounts of oil that remain in the ground after oilfields expire. [ + ]

Microbial geneticist Prof Bonnie Bassler of Princeton University is a sort of bacterial linguist -- she studies how bacteria, the simplest living organisms, communicate. [ + ]

A total of 1252 new projects are to receive Australian Research Council (ARC) funding, totalling $289.5 million over the next three years, it was announced today. [ + ]

A house of the future, built from a range of energy-saving materials developed using nanotechnology is the aim of a new partnership between the CSIRO and The University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

An all-Australian group of researchers embracing some of the country's leading stem cell workers has won an a $4.2 million grant from the US National Institutes of Health to spearhead research into kidney disease. [ + ]

Microbiology is in ferment, says Dr Jan Tennent, and the next decade is likely to see major gains in the perennial war between humans and their microbial nemeses -- viruses, bacteria and parasites. [ + ]

It was, as he admitted himself, an unusual topic with which to kick off a cell biology meeting. But Prof Lewis Wolpert's plenary lecture, 'The Biology of Belief', which he gave at the ComBio 2002 meeting in Sydney this morning, straddled clinical research, anthropology, ancient history and technology -- setting the tone for the breadth of research that was to come at the conference. [ + ]

A month after its installation, a major computerised modelling system, based on the Linux operating system, is delivering substantial cost and time savings for biotech venture Cytopia. [ + ]

More than 1000 delegates have rolled up for this year's ComBio conference at Sydney's Darling Harbour, according to organisers. [ + ]