Good morning fellow biotech fans. Whether you’re off for the holiday today or just want a short break from work, we have a great list of videos from the past week for you to check out:

IBM AIMS TO BUILD NANOSCALE DNA SEQUENCER – This video about IBM’s efforts to build a silicon-based “DNA Transistor” is truly awe-inspiring.

COMMUNITY BANDS TOGETHER TO SUPPORT LOCAL BIOSCIENCE CENTER – This short video shows how Kansas officials, business leaders and others are working together to develop a new bioscience center at KU.

REPORTING FROM THE DEL MAR BIOTECH SUMMIT – Here’s a video from the Second Annual Biotechnology Summit at Del Mar College, which was funded by the US Dept of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.

BIOTECH AND FARMING – If you haven’t caught BIO’s video series BIODigest and BIObytes. You should definitely check them out. One of the latest in the BIODigest seriestackles biotech and farming.

And now to the biotech news and events of the weekend:

AUSTRALIA’S BIOTECH REVOLUTION – We came across this great post from Australia’s “Gov Monitor” blog. It outlines the successful use of biotech in the country to produce improved crops and increase yields. It also discusses the next frontiers in biotech, genomics and phenomics.

The Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG) – a major initiative of the Grains Research and Development Corporation and the Australian Research Council – is funded to understand fundamental plant processes that can subsequently be manipulated to increase biotic stress tolerance in wheat and barley, commonly encountered by cereal crops in Australia and overseas.

Drought, salinity and nutrient deficiency are abiotic stresses which are the subject of particular focus by the ACPFG.

MONSANTO PREDICTS INCREASE IN BIOTECH CROP PLANTING IN AFRICA – Speaking of agricultural biotech around the world, this piece in Bloomberg caught our eye. According to the article:

Monsanto Co., the world’s biggest seed producer, expects African countries to increase planting of genetically-modified crops to boost food security and economic development as the region is affected by climate change.

Burkina Faso plans to double the area planted with the company’s insect-resistant cotton next year from 129,000 hectares (318,766 acres) this year, Natalie DiNicola, director at Monsanto’s public policy and sustainable yield division, said in an interview yesterday. Corn modified to tolerate drought may be introduced to the sub-Saharan region by 2017, she said.

BIOTECH LEADERS STEVEN BURRILL & GARY PISANO ON THE FUTURE OF THE INDUSTRY – Xconomy had an interesting piece detailing a segment at MassBio’s Investor Forum last week, which put biotech luminaries Steven Burrill and Gary Pisano head to head on the future of the industry:

Both Burrill and Pisano agreed that the biotech industry is in for some dramatic changes. Burrill, CEO of San Francisco-based investment firm Burrill & Company, forecasted that new diagnostics would outperform new drugs as moneymakers for life sciences firms as the U.S. healthcare system evolves from a system of reactive care to preventive care over the next decade or so. And sounding a familiar drumbeat from his deep analysis of biotech in his book “Science Business,” Pisano said the industry needs further integration to remove some of the inefficiencies that have made developing biotech drugs such a costly and risky business.

But the two collided over how biotech startups should think about building the value…

BIO, MAJOR UNIVERSITY URGE AGAINST PATENT LAW CHANGE – The Biotechnology Industry Organization and the University of Wisconsin-Madison are speaking out against a proposed patent law change that would exempt genetic tests from patent protection. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has the details:

“They are making reckless policy recommendations,” said Andrew Cohn, who spearheads government lobbying efforts on behalf of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, UW-Madison’s patent-management arm. “This is an incredible precedent, a bad precedent.”

The 300-page study was drafted by an advisory committee to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. It focused specifically on genetic tests that are often associated with diagnostic work on cancer, heart and neurological conditions.