Really interesting article, nice to see that the UK have been named number 1 for something so positive. (Jane)

For decades European countries have been among the most innovative on the planet when it comes to drug development. Scientists at stellar academic centers like the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the Oxford/Cambridge university axis in the UK have produced some of the best thinking on new drugs the industry has seen. And clusters of developers in Switzerland, the UK and places like the Medicon Valley in northern Denmark and southern Sweden have spawned their share of start-ups. Germany has seen a whole generation of biotech companies launched with public assistance from the BioRegions it began to establish more than a decade ago.

via European Biotechnology, European Biotech – FierceBiotech.

This is a really interesting article about the reuse of paper production waste – a new biotechnology method used to modify the chemical and structural properties of the cellulose materials that are left over – and has potential in all sorts of applications.

ScienceDaily (July 2, 2009)

Margarita Calafell, a researcher at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the UPC’s School of Industrial and Aeronautical Engineering of Terrassa (ETSEIAT), has developed the new method.

In many cases, the new material could replace plastic packaging and auxiliary building materials. The new patented material has unique properties. It is low density, mouldable, fire resistant, impermeable, porous and highly resistant, and it may replace less environmentally friendly materials in many industry and production sectors.

Read more here:  http://tinyurl.com/nloo99