Marco Gielkens has been active in the Netherlands since 2000, as expert on LMO regulations and of LMO risk assessment. He is an senior risk assessor in the GMO Office, which is part of the Ministry of the Environment, the CA for environmental LMO issues (2001/18/EC and 2009/41/EC). He is responsible for the risk assessment of field trials and commercial release with GM plants and acts coordinator for the licensing of gene therapy applications. He functions as a scientific expert for the Ministry of the Environment for all aspects concerning environmental risk assessment of GM plants and gene therapy.
He is also head of delegation for the OECD Working Party on Harmonization Regulatory Oversight in Biotechnology. In the past he was  part of several technical working groups of the European Commission, member of the scientific committee of several research projects.
Finally he is designated as National Focal Point for the BCH.

VSP/ GMO Office

Risk assessment of plant and gene therapy, scientific expert

Molecular-genetical analysis and physiological analysis of ABC transporters of the wheat pathogen Mycosphaerella graminicola which function as protectants against biotic and xenobiotic toxic compounds.

M.Sc. in agricultural sciences, specialization biotechnology

Wageningen Agricultural University

PH.D. in Agricultural Sciences, Molecular genetics of industrial fungi.

Wageningen Agricultural University

biotechnology, molecular genetics of industrial and phytopathogenic fungi

Gielkens, M.M.C., Dekkers, E., Visser, J. &de Graaff, L.H., 198,  Two cellobiohydrolase-encoding genes from Aspergillus niger require D-xylose and the xylanolytic transcriptional activator XlnR for their expression, Appl Environ Microbiol; 65(10):4340-5

Romeis, R., D Bartsch, F Bigler, MP Candolfi, MMC Gielkens, SE Hartley, RL Hellmich, JE Huesing, PC Jepson, R Layton, H Quemada, A Raybould, RI Rose, J Schiemann, MK Sears, AM Shelton, J Sweet, Z Vaituzis & JD Wolt, 2008, Moving through the tiered and methodological framework for non-target arthropod risk assessment of transgenic insecticidal crops. Nature Biotechnology, 26(2):203-208.

K Carstens, J Anderson, P Bachman, A de Schrijver, G Dively, B Federici, M Hamer, M Gielkens, P Jensen, W Lamp, S Rauschen, G Ridley, J Romeis, A Waggoner, 2011, Genetically modified crops and aquatic ecosystems: considerations for environmental risk assessment and non-target organism testing. Transgenic Research, DOI 10.1007/s11248-011-9569-8

O. Sanvido, J Romeis, A Gathmann, M Gielkens, A Raybould & F Bigler, 2012, Evaluating environmental risks of genetically modified crops: ecological harm criteria for regulatory decision-making. Environmental Science & Policy, vol. 15: 82-91.

D Bartsch, F Bigler, P Castanera, A Gathmann, M Gielkens, S Hartley, K Lheureux, S Renckens, J Schiemann, J Sweet & R Wilhelm, 2006, The EFSA opinion on post market environmental monitoring of GM plants. Journal für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit, Vol. 1 Suppl. 1: 15-20.

International Society for Biosafety Research (ISBR)