Happy New Year! The Biotech weblog is back in circulation and to start off, let's all first take a look back into the year that was. Similar to that of The Scientist is Technology Review's Best in Biotech for the Year 2005:

HapMap: A Genomic Guide to Disease. A catalog of more than three million points of genetic variation based on samples from 269 people, the HapMap project is expected to help discover genes involved in cancer, diabetes, and other diseases, and to help identify genetic markers that could fine-tune personalized medicine.

Stem Cell Research. Year 2005 saw legislature changes with regards to use of stem cells in the US, discovery non-fetal stem cells making it as far as clinical trials, with the year ending in a sensational controversy involving the stem cell leader Woo Suk Hwang, who also used to head Korea's World Stem Cell Hub.

cloning Cats and Dogs. Genetic Savings and Clone, the world's first pet cloning company, sold its second cloned kitten Gizmo to the tune of $32,000. Woo Suk Hwang and researchers published a paper in Nature reporting their success in cloning a dog, named Snuppy. of course, with the controversy wrapping Hwang at the moment, there is doubt on the authenticity of this piece.

The Methuselah Debates. "Technology Review's most widely read -- and most controversial -- story in 2005 was a profile of Aubrey de Grey, an English bioinformaticist and self-educated biogerontologist who has outlined a seven-point plan to cure human aging". There were also a couple of entries on Dr. De Grey in this weblog here and here via Creative Reporter Frank Rummel.

I am surprised that with all the attention it got, the avian flu and the development of a vaccine against it did not make it to this list. Can you think of any other biotech issue that deserves to be on the list of 2005's best?