The arguments surrounding the merits and demerits of patents shift between the right of the inventor to enjoy the fruits of his labour and his duty towards the society. In the context of microorganisms, the most vital distinction between the legal practices of India and developed countries is that India does not allow patenting of microorganisms that already exist in nature but genetically modi...

Genetically engineered protein block polymers are an important class of biomaterials that have gained significant attention in recent years due to their potential applications in biotechnology, electronics and medicine. The majority of the protein materials have been composed of at least a single self-assembling domain (SAD), enabling the formation of supramolecular structures. Recently, we dev...

Traceability of GMO food and feed is a growing request among the European populations and the European Community has responded by providing a complex set of EC Regulations on GMO traceability, detection and labelling, to ensure that the general public is able to make an informed choice about the food they eat. Despite the efficiency and sensitivity of modern GMO detection methods, the regulatio...

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have recently attracted the attention of agricultural, medical and food scientists and governments of many countries in the world due to an increasing concern that the recombinant gene(s) inserted into an organism may result in unforeseen effects. Therefore, there is a need to regulate each transgenic event so that the officially approved events will be the...

In this study, we investigate the long-term exposure (20 weeks) to fumonisin B(1) (FB(1)) in grower-finisher pigs by conducting a quantitative exposure assessment (QEA). Our analytical approach involved both deterministic and semi-stochastic modeling for dietary comparative analyses of FB(1) exposures originating from genetically engineered Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)-corn, conventional non-Bt ...

The development and marketing of agricultural biotechnology applications has led to controversies over whether and how to regulate this new technology. The European Union has imposed severe restrictions on agricultural biotechnology, particularly in terms of approval and labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food. The United States has maintained a far more permissive approval po...

Detection of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food is an important issue for all the subjects involved in food control and customer's right. Due to the increasing number of GMOs imported to Iran during the past few years, it has become necessary to screen the products in order to determine the identity of the consumed daily foodstuffs. In this study, following the extraction of genomic ...

Any release of transgenic organisms into nature is a concern because ecological relationships between genetically engineered organisms and other organisms (including their wild-type conspecifics) are unknown. To address this concern, we developed a method to evaluate risk in which we input estimates of fitness parameters from a founder population into a recurrence model to predict changes in tr...

Based on the scientific uncertainty surrounding both the molecular characterization of genetically engineered (GE) crops as well as the detection of potential allergenicity, there is more than enough uncertainty to decide to require labeling of foods produced via GE as a risk management measure as a way to identify unintended health effects that may occur post approval. If foods are not labeled...

Primers and probes were developed for the element-specific detection of cry1A.105 and cry2Ab2 genes, based on their DNA sequence as present in GM maize MON89034. Cry genes are present in many genetically modified (GM) plants and they are important targets for developing GMO element-specific detection methods. Element-specific methods can be of use to screen for the presence of GMOs in food and ...