10th International symposium on the biosafety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

th International Symposium on the Biosafety of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)The 10 th international symposium in a series on the biosafety of GMOs was held on 16 th -21 st November, 2008 in Wellington, New Zealand.It was organized by the International Society for Biosafety Research (ISBR) and its running title: "Biosafety Research of GMOs: Past Achievements and Future Challenges" was, no doubt, attractive not only to academicians but also to regulators, policy makers, and representatives of industry and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).Thus, despite the distance and the fact that many other related events on the biosafety of GMOs were taking place in 2008, about 250 participants joined the symposium.The Symposium Committee headed by Sally McCammon (USA) and a Programme Committee under the guidance of Jeremy Sweet (UK), supported by numerous specialists from New Zealand (e.g.Tony Conner, Linda Newstrom-Lloyd, Christina Vieglais, Libby Harrison) and Australia (Paul Keese) did a good job in preparing a comprehensive programme based on the careful selection not only of relevant problem-oriented sessions and workshops, but also of chairmen and speakers.Due to the limited time available the programme was divided into nine sessions (Biosafety: Experience and Results; Introgression, Invasion and Fitness: Developing Models for the Risk Assessment of GM Plants; Biotic and Abiotic Stress Resistance; GM Animals; Soil Ecosystems; Common OECD/ISBR session on Risk Assessment: State of the Art in Different Countries; Biocontainment Methods; Post Market Environmental Monitoring, and Conference Conclusions), five workshops (Confinement Measures for Field Experiments; The Future of ISBR; Relevant Science for Regulators; Novel Approaches to Environmental Risk Assesssment, and Risk Communication) and eight poster sessions.There were only a few overlapping parts of the programme so that participants were able to take part in most of the events.The presentations were introduced by M. Newell-McGloughlin (University of California, Davis, USA) who gave an overview lecture devoted to the Risk Assessment (RA) challenges of new biotech products.While the first generation of commercialized GMOs were crops focusing largely on input agronomic traits, upcoming generations could be grouped into four broad areas: continuing improvement of agronomic traits (yield, abiotic and biotic stress), crop plants as biomass stocks for biofuels and biosynthesis, value added output traits (improved nutrition and food functionality) and modified animals that may parallel plants at some level of application (disease resistance, yield, food quality, molecular pharming, etc.).At present, different regulatory approaches are used in different countries all over the world (e.g. in USA "product-based" evaluations vs. the "technology-based" criteria used in Europe) and this causes some difficulties in RA, GMOs release into the environment, risk management (RM), transboundary movement and international trade.As to the seven years of Australian (AU) and New Zealand (NZ) regulatory experience with the use of the "Risk Assessment Framework for Licence Applications" (a key document for regulators, evaluation staff, applicants, stakeholders, domestic and international biodies and the Australian public), it will soon be necessary to make revisions of the GMO legislation based on operational experience, advances in RA methodology and worldwide gains in scientific knowledge (E.Flynn, Office of the Gene Technology Regulator, AU).Regulatory constraints could hamper or block the commercialization not only of the main, but also of minor transgenic crops, like that of the genetically modified (GM) carnations referred to in the presentation of S. Chandler (Florigene, AU), and the entry of GMO to the market in small countries