Biosafety Clearing-House News
| Subscribe/Follow us: |
BCH RSS:  |
Cartagena Protocol RSS: |
BCH & CPB on Twitter:  |
The goal of the workshop was to introduce regulators, inspectors and members of the national scientific-advisory bodies (e.g. the Council for GMOs, the Committee for Release of GMOs into the environment and the Committee for Contained Use) to the legal and scientific basis and European guidelines, standards and recommendations for the methodology of the Post-Market Environmental Monitoring Plan (PMEM) of GMOs at the EU level. More...
Professor Min Jeong-Joon and his team at the Department of Nuclear Medicine at Chonnam National University have developed a technology that can detect and treat cancer cells by using Salmonella bacteria. The research findings have been published in the January edition of Cancer Research, a US medical journal.
Salmonella bacteria, which can cause food poisoning, are known to proliferate in cancer cells. The researchers, having noticed the behavior, have attenuated Salmonella bacteria whose toxicity has weakened by over one million times. The team, then, modified the gene of the bacteria to generate Cytolysin A, a protein that selectively melts cancer cells. Further, the team also inserted fluorescent genes into the bacteria in order to allow for video imaging of the entire process of diagnosis and treatment.
The researchers are also seeking to further lower toxicity in order to address human health risks. The team forecast that the Salmonella strain with few safety concerns will be able to be clinically tested on humans in five years through injection.
The team also enabled a visual imaging of detection and treatment for the first time in the world in 2008 by inserting fluorescent genes into Escherichia coli strains.
(2010. 1. 5)
The team led by Professor An Gyun-heung of Life Sciences Department at the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) have successfully developed a rice that can help treat anemia by injecting an “enhancer” DNA into the rice plant that activates the function of OsNAS3, the gene known to enhance the concentrations of iron and dietary zinc. The findings have been published on December 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a U.S. science journal.
The team said that after conducting a four-week feed test on mice with anemia, it observed a sharp increase in the level of hemoglobin in the animals. Compared to those of naturally grown Dongjinbyeo rice, the levels of iron and zinc of the new rice were 2.9 times and 2.2 times higher respectively. Further, the rice has a 7 times higher content of iron that is combined with nicothiamine, which plays a key role in absorbing and transmitting iron and zinc, according to the team.
(2009. 12. 22)
The Korean government has approved SmartStax™ corn, a genetically modified corn with eight stacked developed by Monsanto and its partner Dow as food and feed respectively on November 2 and November 9.
The GM corn was created through collaboration between Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences: The traits such as tolerance against Roudnup herbicides and resistance against corn borers, corn rootworms, and other insects are combined together using crosses between existing transgenic corn lines that have been previously approved for food and animal consumption.
SmartStax™ corn, which contain eight genes that can control insects and herbicides, have been approved by the US, Canada, Japan, and Taiwan for import and commercial cultivation.
As Monsanto announced its plan to focus on the SmartStax product, the cultivation and rate of import are expected to significantly grow. The import cost of Smartstax corn, which will be marketed next year, is feared to jump as the production cost of the seed is expected to increase from the current 124 dollars per acre (three times higher than non-GM corns).
As SmartStax and other varieties with stacked traits are highly likely to be marketed for cultivation, the government and NGO are discussing the safety assessment process for stacked traits.
The government said, “Since Smartstax is a stacked trait hybrid created by crossing the previously approved GM events, neither its protein expression levels, biological activities, nor its genetic sequences were found to be transformed. Therefore, it was not subject to a separate safety assessment”
On the other hand, on December 12, a consumer advocate group against GM foods has released a statement that calls for an exhaustive safety assessment for stacked traits of GM crops. It said that given that the impact of GM crops on the environment and human life has yet to be fully identified, we are unable to predict how stacked traits with multiple modes of action and more complicated mechanisms will affect our life.
(2009. 12. 8)
The Secretariat is pleased to announce the release of Issue 7 of the Biosafety Protocol News. It focuses on experiences and lessons learned in facilitating the exchange of information on, and experience with, Living Modified Organisms (LMOs) through the Biosafety Clearing-House (BCH). The purpose of this issue is to enable governments and other stakeholders to share and benefit from the experiences, good practices and lessons learned from different BCH activities. This issue features articles from Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America.
-BCH Tutorials are now available on YouTube-
As announced on 5 February 2010, the Secretariat has completed and made available for download all five BCH Tutorials in English, French and Spanish (accessible in MS PowerPoint, AVI, WMV and DVD formats).
We are now pleased to further announce that all tutorials can also be watched directly on the BCH or YouTube as follows:
· BCH Pages: http://bch.cbd.int/help/tutorials/
· YouTube BCH channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/bchcpb
We hope that you will continue to find this tool useful and recommend it to all BCH users.
Following up on a request by the Parties, the Secretariat launched in February the Second Series of Regional Real-time Online Conferences under the Open-ended Online Expert Forum on Risk Assessment and Risk Management. Two Real-time Online Conferences were held last week for Africa, and Asia and the Pacific regions. Two additional conferences will be held for WEOG and CEE, on 9 February (in English from 10:00 to 14:00 GMT) and for Latin America and the Caribbean, on 11 February (in Spanish from 15:00 to 19:00 GMT). All registered BCH Users may access the Real-time Online Conferences at as "Guests" to follow the discussions as they take place. The Real-time Online Conferences are accessible at http://bch.cbd.int/onlineconferences/realtime_ra.shtml .
Nouveau module du tutoriel du Centre d’échange pour la prévention des risques biotechnologiques (CEPRB) maintenant disponible en Français. // New BCH Tutorial module on Registering Information now available in French.
[English text at the bottom]
Le nouveau module du tutoriel du Centre d’échange pour la prévention des risques biotechnologiques (CEPRB) (Module 4) est maintenant disponible en Français dans la section "Enregistrement d'information" au http://bch.cbd.int/help/tutorial.shtml
Le nouveau module (disponible en formats MS PowerPoint, AVI, WMV et DVD) explique en détail comment enregistrer l'information dans le centre d'échange via le Centre de gestion nouvellement remanié.
Nous espérons que vous trouverez cet outil utile et le recommanderez à tous les utilisateurs du CEPRB.
Les versions Anglaise et Espagnole du tutoriel sont disponibles depuis le 27 novembre 2009 et sont accessibles au site web mentionné plus haut.
====
The new BCH Tutorial module on the 'Registering Information’ section (Module 4).has now been made available in French at http://bch.cbd.int/help/tutorial.shtml
The new module (available in MS PowerPoint, AVI, WMV and DVD formats) explains in detail how to register information in the BCH through the newly revamped Management Centre.
We hope you will find this tool useful and recommend it to all BCH users.
English and Spanish versions of the tutorial were released on 27 November 2009 and are also accessible at the above website.
An online Forum has been launched on the Biosafety Clearing-House, at http://bch.cbd.int/onlineconferences/spforum.shtml, which is designed to provide the opportunity for you to make comments on (1) the updated draft elements of the Strategic Plan and (2) the proposed framework for the second Assessment and Review of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety under Article 35. Both documents are available for download on the Forum website. More...
|