WHO needs sequence data and encourages government to up testing around recent bird outbreak

When Charles Cantor and Dennis Lo flew to Pattaya, Thailand in late 2002 to attend a conference, neither man knew they would end up collaborating on a blood test that could one day reduce reliance on invasive prenatal diagnostic methods such as amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling (CVS)

The University of Hong Kong announced that it was going to rename its Faculty of Medicine, which conducts groundbreaking research into severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and avian influenza, in honor of a local tycoon who recently donated $128 million (US).

Hong Kong Uni puts a donor's name on med school, triggering worries about academic freedom

In July 2004, 12 drug manufacturers in China successfully challenged Pfizer's Viagra patent, in effect gaining the ability to make sildenafil citrate-containing drugs with impunity.

In March, Geron Corporation of Menlo Park, Calif., teamed up with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's (HKUST) Biotechnology Research Corporation to find new drugs that would activate telomerase and, it is hoped, result in a treatment for age-related diseases.

When SARS struck more than 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 in the spring of 2003, the world clamored to know when a vaccine against the deadly virus would come to the rescue.