Team:Groningen/Safety

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Safety

Introduction

When handling biological materials such as GMOs, safety measurements should be taken into account. To this end, various levels of institutes/organizations are involved to maintain all the different aspects of safety. Here, we will describe the most important organizations who are responsible for this and provide you with all the necessary information.

European level

Most of all the Dutch legislation concerning biotechnology is derived from the European Union (EU). From a European level, a directive was made to ensure safety not only for the researcher but also for the laboratory and the environment. For more information click National level

The Dutch government processed these rules into nation-wide legislation, for more information click here. As of 2016, the Dutch government also started the research program termed ‘Biotechnology and Safety’ with its goal to gain scientific insights into the possible long-term risks and insecurities derived from biotechnological innovation. Since our project focusses on the dairy industry we want to highlight the following legislation regarding the labelling of foods and other products with GMOs. The most important ones are highlighted here:

Legislation labelling of foods and products with GMO’s

• Products containing more than 0,9% of GMO’s ingredient, the manufacturer should label it on the product.
• Spacer acquisition: After infection the CRISPR/Cas complex will recognize the phage DNA and harvest a 25-30 nt spacer and incorporate it into the CRISPR array.
• Milk, meat and eggs from animals which have consumed GMO-food do not have to have labelled
• Signal: Our signalling plasmid contains a sequence homologous to the phage DNA in a repressor/promotor region of a GFP gene. Cutting by Cas9 leads to either expression or loss of expression of GFP, which gives an easy to detect signal.
• In the case that products do not contain any GMO’s, food manufactures are allowed to label it ‘made without gentechnology’ when they conform to the rules of ‘Warenwetbesluit Nieuwe Voedingsmiddelen’.

Dutch Department of Infrastructure and Environment

In addition, the Dutch Department of Infrastructure and Environment (Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Milieu, I&M) is responsible for renewing and modernizing policy concerning biotechnology. Not only does this entail creating more opportunities for this sector, it also focused on safeguarding safety and providing support for biotechnological innovations. For more information about our talk with Sr. policy officer Rob Duba on Biotechnology at the Department I&M click here (= hyperlink..... )

National Institute of Health and Environment (RIVM)

In turn, the Department of I&M requests advise of the National Institute of Health and Environment (Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu, RIVM), a national institute who writes a large amount of advisory rapports for the Dutch government concerning biotechnological innovations. The RIVM focuses on safeguarding consumer health and promoting a healthy environment for all Dutch citizens. Fortunately for us, the RIVM is highly involved in the iGEM completion and aids all Dutch IGEM teams. In turn for financial support they designed the so-called ‘Think before doing’ assignment by which Dutch teams were compelled to, as the name implies, think about biosafety at the start of our project. In collaboration with the RIVM we made a game regarding safety in synthetic biology called ‘Outbreak!’. (link)

We already spoke to various employees of the RIVM who were so kind to give us advice. For more information about our talk with Wouter Ghering click here (=hyperlink).

Rathenau Institute

The Rathenau institute, an institute who focuses on stimulating the public and political opinion with regard to social aspects of science and technology in the Netherlands, launched the ‘IGEM-ers guide to the future’ together with SYNENERGENE, a Mobilisation and Mutual Learning Action Plan funded by the European Commission’s FP7 Science in Society Work Program. The guide that was designed was an extremely helpful tool for our human practices-related activities and you can see the results from assignments throughout our website! Curious about our talks with Zoë Robaey? Please click here (=hyperlink)

The Dutch Commission on Modification (COGEM)

Moreover, the Dutch government is advised by the Dutch Commission on Modification (COGEM). This organization consists of experts in different fields who write scientific reports about the possible risks of either production or use of GMO’s for humans and environment and informs the government about ethical and social aspects related to genetic modification as well. For more information, please visit the COGEM website. To learn more about our visit to the COGEM symposium regarding gene editing, *click here *

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