................................................................................................................................ 2 Introduction.......................................................................................................................... 3 Background on the U.S. Regulatory System for GE Crops ............................................. 3 Characterization of the Tra...

In the European Union, the definition of a GMO is technology-based. This means that a novel organism will be regulated under the GMO regulatory framework only if it has been developed with the use of defined techniques. This approach is now challenged with the emergence of new techniques. In this paper, we describe regulatory and safety issues associated with the use of oligonucleotide-mediated...

Method validation is therefore an essential component of the measures that a laboratory should implement to allow it to produce reliable analytical data. In some sectors, most notably in the analysis of food, the requirement for methods that have been “fully validated” is prescribed by legislation. ‘Full’ validation for an analytical method is usually taken to comprise an examination of the cha...

What has the co-existence of GM and non-GM crops to do with environmental biosafety? A clear distinction has to be made between the economic aspects of co-existence and the environmental and health aspects of GMOs. Nevertheless, since both the co-existence and the biosafety areas are often based on the same scientific knowledge (e.g. regarding gene flow) and EBR is interested in the socio-econo...

Strategies and best practices for the co-existence of GM and non-GM crops need to be developed and implemented with the participation of farmers and other stakeholders. According to the principle of 'subsidiarity', decisions should be made by the lowest authority possible. When applying this concept to the case of GM crops, the affected society should determine their use and management in a reg...

The database used by Hemmingsen (1960) to compute energy metabolism in unicellular organisms was reassembled and submitted to linear (log-log) analysis. As Hemmingsen noted, this data set includes marine zygotes, which are not unicellular organisms. If no temperature correction factors are applied to the data the best-fit regression line has a slope of 0.698 +/- 0.024. Application of the temper...

Concerns regarding the commercial release of genetically engineered (GE) crops include naturalization, introgression to sexually compatible relatives and the transfer of beneficial traits to native and weedy species through hybridization. To date there have been few documented reports of escape leading some researchers to question the environmental risks of biotech products. In this study we co...

Research with animals presents ethical questions both for being used as models of human diseases and for being a prerequisite for trials in humans, as in the introduction of genetic modifications. Some of these questions refer to the fact that, as models, they do not fully represent the human condition; that conducting toxicity tests causes great harm to animals; that their nature is altered by...

The construction of bioluminescent and fluorescent foodborne pathogens to study behavior in food systems is an expanding area of research. Using recombinant DNA technology, food microbiologists can create bioluminescent pathogens that enable the study of growth, injury, and destruction in complex systems. In addition, bioluminescence can be employed in rapid detection of pathogens through the u...

Genetic knowledge applicable to crop improvement has erupted over the past 60 years, and the techniques of introducing genes from one organism to another have enabled new varieties of crops not achievable by previously available methodologies of crop breeding. Research and particularly development of these GMO-crops to a point where they are useful for growers and consumers in most countries is...