Team:UChile OpenBio-CeBiB/Collaborations/iGEMManchesterCollaboration
GMO Regulations
Here is the collaboration organized by iGEM Manchester team. They made a series of questions about regulations for the correct manipulation of GMOs, and different teams have answered them, depending on which country they are from.
The institutional bodies that enforce the laws regarding the use of GMMs differ a lot across the world. In many countries in Asia (Japan, Indonesia, and Korea) and Canada, ministries and departments are responsible for enforcing the laws of GMMs. The kinds of ministries enforcing the laws as well as their numbers vary from country to country, but usually the large organizations are in charge.
On the other hand, countries like India, Brazil, the United States, and Australia have more specialied committees or institutions of biotechnology and biosafety and these committees are responsible for enforcing the laws.
In the European Union, the European Commission is responsible for enforcing the GMO laws to be followed by all member countries. Chile doesn’t have a clear regulation for biotechnology, but has responsible institutions when commercing or trading.
We can distinguish two different administrative ways in which countries decided to regulate the use of GMMs. One way government regulate GMMs is by establishing a special, often non-governmental, organisation, which usually also acts as an information centre in the field of synthetic biology. The other way involves assigning conventional ministries to regulate the use of GMMs in their respective fields.
The European Union, Australia, and Indonesia belong to the first group. For example, in Australia, Gene Technology Regulator Advisory Committee takes charge of making decisions on products’ approval. Competent authorities in the European Union and The Biosafety Commission and The Technical Team for Biosafety in Indonesia have similar roles.
Brazil, Canada, Chile, Korea, India, Japan and the US belong to the second group, where conventional ministries are responsible for their respective fields. Even though the names of these ministries might differ amongst the countries, it seems to be a more prevalent way to regulate GMO. Additional information centres might be present to help the ministries make decisions, nonetheless.
