As a result of a license agreement between the CSIRO/Australian Capital Ventures Limited joint venture and Austgrains Pty Ltd, a new high-fiber variety of barley developed by CSIRO called BARLEYmax®, will soon be out in the Australian market.

This variety was developed using conventional plant breeding techniques, and contains more than twice the amount of insoluble and soluble fibre found in wheat or oats, as well as resistant starch. According to the press release, clinical testing has shown that products made with BARLEYmax - such as breakfast cereals, muffins and breads - have a low Glycaemic Index and strong bowel health attributes.

"Further testing showed BARLEYmax has excellent processing properties and foods made with the new grain have a naturally sweet, slightly nutty taste," Mr Ball says. "With large volumes to be produced soon by Austgrains, healthy foods made with BARLEYmax are likely to be on Australian breakfast tables in the near future."

BioArts International and the Best Friends Again program have launched the first ever global online auction to clone five dogs. The auction will beheld July 5th through July 9th, with a high bidder notified on each day. First day bidding will begin at $100,000 with the initial price increasing on each successive day.

In addition, there will be a Golden Clone Giveaway, where one lucky person can receive a FREE cloning of his or her dog simply by completing an entry form by June 24th, including a 500-word essay explaining why they feel their dog deserves to be cloned.

BioArts International has been granted the sole, worldwide license for the cloning of dogs, cats and endangered species. This exclusive license was granted by Start Licensing Inc. for cloning patents developed at the Roslin Institute for Dolly the sheep, the first successfully cloned animal. The Best Friends Again program is a partnership between BioArts and the world's most experienced dog cloning team, Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in South Korea.

The Biomarkers Consortium, a collaborative public-private partnership managed by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), will announce at 2008 BIO its future strategic focus on High-Impact Biomarkers Opportunities. By doing so, The Biomarkers Consortium is creating will be bringing together industry leaders to accelerate the identification, development and regulatory qualification of biomarkers in four key areas: cancer, inflammation and immunity, metabolic disorders, and neuroscience.

The Biomarkers Consortium will formally announce the creation of these High-Impact Biomarkers Opportunities during a two-part supersession being sponsored by the Consortium at the 2008 BIO International Convention in San Diego on Thursday, June 19, 2008 (Room 29 CD).

* A 2-3:30 p.m. panel will address "Accelerating the Identification and Development of Biomarkers for Human Health through Public-Private Partnerships."
* The 4-5:30 p.m. panel will assess "The Promise and Progress of The Biomarkers Consortium," focusing on the Consortium's efforts in cancer.

For more information, please visit The Biomarkers Consortium and The Foundation for NIH at booth 624, or check out their website.

Researchers have shown that GECGC, a synthetic version of procyanidins, a class of flavanols, slowed the growth and accelerated the destruction of human tumors in laboratory studies, and may thus have potentials for cancer chemoprevention or even treatment. Flavanols are naturally found in fruits, vegetables and cocoa beans.

In these studies, the scientists tested the effects of three different doses of GECGC on the cancer cell lines - the first time that a synthetic cocoa derivative has been used to screen human cancer cell lines. None of the doses tested were extreme, Kim points out. "The effective concentrations were considered similar to what a person might eat or use," he says.

They found sensitivity to GECGC in both colon cancer cell lines they tested, in cervical cancer cells and in one line of leukemia, tumor cells. Other cell lines were resistant, including ovarian and prostate cancer cells.

GECGC displayed highest activity against colon cancer cells. Animal studies are underway to confirm data.

Source

The fertility assist device called INVOcell has received market approval in the EU.

Meant to replace the artificial in vitro fertilization (IVF) lab with a natural maternal environment to optimize early embryo development, is where INVOcell comes in - a product of BioXcell.

The device, an incubator designed to hold a postfertilization oocyte(s), is placed into the maternal vaginal cavity. The idea is to replace the artificial in vitro fertilization (IVF) lab with a natural maternal environment to optimize early embryo development inside the INVOcell device.

Story found via MedGadget (read more).

Three DNA sequencing companies have joined an international research consortium called 1000 Genomes, aimed at creating a new map of the human genome that will provide a view of biomedically relevant DNA variations at a resolution unmatched by current resources. These biotech companies are 454 Life Sciences, Applied Biosystems, and Illumina Inc.

"The additional sequencing capacity and expertise provided by the three companies in the pilot phase will enable us to explore the human genome with even greater depth and speed than we had originally envisioned, and will help us to optimize the design of the full study to follow," said Richard Durbin, Ph.D., of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, who is co-chair of the consortium. "It is a win-win arrangement for all involved. The companies will gain an exciting opportunity to test their technologies on hundreds of samples of human DNA, and the project will obtain data and insight to achieve its goals in a more efficient and cost-effective manner than we could without their help."

More about the 1000 Genome project from the National Human Genome Research Institute.