Past Discussions 2013

Dear All,

Thank you for your participation and feedback. This discussion is now closed. We will post a summary of the main points raised in a few days.

As previously indicated the Secretariat will be organising a face-to face meeting with the view to work towards the objective of developing a strategy to address Parties’ needs regarding detection and identification of LMOs and develop recommendations for the consideration of the COP-MOP at their next meeting. Further details will be issued soon.

Best regards,
Dina

Thank you to those who have contributed to this discussion. As always we appreciate the time and effort you dedicated sharing your expertise with this group.

With regards to the use of the terms “unauthorized LMOs” and “unintentionally released LMOs” as for the purposes of this discussion, participants indicated that there was no uniform use of the terms within their national regulatory contexts. Furthermore, the various national regulatory contexts sometimes use the terms interchangeably and also have an additional variety of terms and definitions to describe the different types of occurrences of LMOs. This variation is also mirrored in the differences in threshold requirements on the permissibility of approving imports containing LM material already authorised and being produced in other countries, but not yet approved in the importing country. IA possible point of consideration is whether or not there is a need to harmonize the terminology in order to help streamline discussions on the topic and on related issues such as the setting of thresholds and labelling requirements.

Participants further noted that the detection of unauthorised and unintentional LMOs is a challenge to detection labs (note: see also a review paper by Holst-Jensen et al “Detecting un-authorized genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and derived materials” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0734975012000377).

Participants highlighted various methodologies for the detection of unauthorised/unintended LMOs. They range from using and optimising a matrix-based approach to more advanced techniques, such as the use of high throughput sequencing methodologies, which however comes with considerations for cost of analysis per sample.

Likewise, access to information regarding what unauthorised/unintended LMOs could potentially be present in a given shipment can facilitate the selection of LMOs targeted for detection, leading to an improved lab workflow process, and help reducing the costs (for example through improved documentation-based tracing of potential target LMOs as outlined in Ruttink et al “Knowledge-technology-based discovery of unauthorized genetically modified organisms” http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00216-009-3218-6).

Thank you to all the participants, the next activity under the Network of Detection Labs will be a face-to face workshop amongst selected participants. The objectives of the workshop are to (i) develop an implementation strategy to assist Parties in achieving the outcomes of the Strategic Plan relevant to the detection and identification of LMOs, and (ii) draft a set of recommendations on the subject of detection and identification of LMOs for consideration by the COP-MOP at its seventh meeting. Further details and a notification will be issued soon.

Best regards,
Dina