‘Policy Considerations Regarding Genome Editing’ (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2019.05.005) have now been published in the latest ‘online now’-edition of Trends in Biotechnology. Summarising the policy discussions during the seminal OECD Conference, held on the 28. – 29. June 2018, this scientific article highlights the manifold arguments for and against more stringent regulations of genome editing technologies.
The OECD (Organisation for Economic and Co-operative Development) Conference formed part of the OECD’s Central Priority Fund (CPF) project on “Health and Environmental Safety in Genome Editing Applications” that had previously been initiated by the OECD Council (the OECD’s governing body, made up of the permanent representative of each OECD member country plus that of the European Commission). It provided a timely platform for scientists, risk assessors, policy-makers, and regulators to discuss the applications and implications of this technology in various agriculture areas and the related policy considerations; in addition questions related to appropriate safety assessments and the regulation of genome-edited products were debated.
The publication of the resulting ‘Policy Considerations Regarding Genome Editing’ represents a timely contribution to the ongoing debates surrounding the increasingly wide-spread application of genome editing techniques; it summarises the start-of-the-art evidence that 32 world-leading experts provided at the international conference.
As part of the conference organising team, SwiftEST is indebted to the many genome editing experts that attended the OECD Conference from all over the world, in order to provide scientific evidence and though-provoking opinions to the debate.
Acknowledgements
The OECD CPF (Central Priority Fund) project on “Health and Environmental Safety in Genome Editing Applications” represents a joint effort of the OECD Directorates of Environment (ENV), Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), Trade and Agriculture (TAD) and Public Governance and Territorial Development (GOV), with specific support from the OECD’s Internal Co-ordination Group for Biotechnology (ICGB), which is coordinated by the Environment Directorate. In addition, the “OECD Conference on Genome Editing: Applications in Agriculture—Implications for Health, Environment and Regulation” was supported by the OECD’s Co-operative Research Programme (CRP).
