According to a survey by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, the country’s number of R&D personnel for the year ended March 31, 2009 rose 0.9% to 10,650. Excluding research assistants, technical staff and administrators, the number of researchers increased 1.4% to 8,390. Japan’s R&D spending for the year ended March 31, 2008 declined 0.8% to […]

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that the country’s government plans to spend RUB 1.1 trillion ($36.8 billion) on fundamental and applied science, higher education, high-technology medicine, and special programs this year. Funding will include RUB 50 billion for new research centers, and RUB 90 billion to support universities. Speaking as the new chairman of […]

Investment in clean energy fell 6.6% last year to $162 billion. These figures exclude R&D, which totaled $25 billion in 2009. In 2010, investment is forecast to increase 25% to $200 billion. Global stimulus funding for clean energy was over $184 billion, including $77 billion in the US and $47 billion in China. But only […]

In 2009, members of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) spent an estimated $45,782 million on R&D, a 3.4% decline. R&D spending by the total biopharmaceutical industry is estimated to have increased 2.5% to $65.3 billion. PhRMA members’ domestic R&D spending declined 2.2% to $34,806 million, while their foreign R&D spending fell 7.1% […]

In 2009, growth of biotech crops increased 7% to 134 million hectares. Twenty-five countries planted biotech crops, with 15 countries each growing more than 50,000 hectares, led by the US, Brazil and Argentina. In Brazil, biotech crops increased 35%, the largest increase among any country, to occupy 21.4 million hectares. Biotech herbicide-tolerant soybean and biotech […]

Atomic Spectroscopy Bruker AXS launched the D8 DISCOVER X-ray diffractometer. The D8 DISCOVER further increases ease of use with real-time component detection, plug-and-play functionality and fully integrated two-dimensional X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) capabilities. These capabilities allow the user to switch between all materials research XRD applications, including reflectometry, high-resolution diffraction, grazing incidence diffraction and small angle […]

Washington, DC 3/26/10—The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed the US District Court for the Northern District of California’s rulings in Applied Biosystems’ (Applera) (now Life Technologies) patent infringement suit against Illumina, Stephen C. Macevicz and Solexa regarding next-generation sequencing technology (see IBO 1/31/09, 4/30/09). In the first phase of the […]

St. Louis, MO 3/16/10—Sigma-Aldrich has announced an agreement to purchase Ace Animal, a provider of research rodents to the biomedical industry, for an undisclosed amount. Ace Animal will operate as part of Sigma Advanced Genetic Engineering (SAGE) Labs. “With the Ace Animals acquisition, SAGE Labs will be in a better position to offer a greater […]