Africa is taking the lead in creating its own biotechnology agenda, according to researchers based at South Africa's Durban University of Technology and the University of Kwazulu-Natal.

The bacterial diversity in a tropical soil experimentally polluted with crude oil during a 57 days bioremediation was investigated in five 1 m2 plots using total culturable hydrocarbon utilizing bacteria, heterotrophic bacteria and gas chromatographic analyses. Four out of the five experimental plots received each 4 L of Bonny light crude oil while three treatment plots received 3 kg of NPK, urea fertilizers or poultry droppings with periodic tilling. Two plots, oil-contaminated and pristine served as controls.

Nigerian researchers from the University of Ibadan and the Federal University of Technology say that some drug and vaccine testing could be done in goats rather than primates. Their research suggests an encephalitis retrovirus infecting goats provides insight into the neuropathology of HIV-induced dementia.