Melbourne vision sciences company Iatia has taken out the top award for optical imaging technology in a prestigious international competition. [ + ]

Investment banker Malcolm McComas has resigned from the board of Melbourne tanning drug company EpiTan after almost three years. [ + ]

Melbourne company Genetic Technologies has reported that it is making good progress with its AIDS research project. [ + ]

Peptech's animal health division has applied to register its medication to control fertility and reproductive behaviour in dogs. [ + ]

Peplin Biotech has shipped the first significant quantity of its lead anti-cancer drug PEP 005 after a year-long effort which it says has "cracked the back" of any manufacturing problems. [ + ]

Novel drug delivery company Acrux has raised $9.8 million through the sale of 10 per cent of its stock to Queensland Investment Corporation. [ + ]

Researchers all over the world are looking for evidence of life elsewhere in the solar system, and intelligence beyond. The Australian Museum is hosting, in conjunction with Macquarie University's Australian Centre for Astrobiology (ACA), a panel discussion on July 5th, in which four leading researchers will give a picture of where we are in the quest to discover our true place in the universe.

Biotechnology will be among a raft of specialised degrees on offer at Victorian TAFE institutes. [ + ]

Business expenditure on R&D (BERD) in 2000-01 increased for the first time in four years, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data released today. [ + ]

The arrival of a group of new appointees on the board of CSIRO could foreshadow a larger role for biotechnology within Australia's premier scientific research organisation. [ + ]

Eiffel Technologies has signed a new agreement with specialist UK drug company Profile Therapeutics to investigate delivery methods for an undisclosed pharmaceutical compound. [ + ]

Pollen from a herbicide-tolerant canola crop spreads to neighbouring fields, according to Australian study published in the June 28th issue of Science, but only a very low percentage of plants are fertilised there. [ + ]

Melbourne's Bio21 precinct is starting to make new waves, with at least three potential collaborations currently on the boil. [ + ]

Technology business accelerator ATP Innovations has won the tender to establish and operate a $2.5 million biotechnology business incubator at Australian Technology Park, in inner-city Sydney. [ + ]

Physicists at the Institute for Microstructural Sciences (Ottawa) are the first to create a prototype of a single-spin transistor, which consists of a quantum dot connected to spin-polarised leads.