Oct 9, 2009

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Biotechnica in Hanover

GMO Safety at Biotechnica

This year, for the first time, GMO Safety was represented at Biotechnica, Europe’s largest biotechnology exhibition. The GMO Safety internet portal exhibited along with seventeen other projects and institutions at a joint stand organised by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Over the course of the three-day exhibition (6-8 October 2009), more than 120 scientists answered questions about the research projects they had completed over the past year, at the public BMBF Biotech Project Forum. The fields of research ranged from stem cell research to food, and from functional genome analysis to biological safety research on genetically modified plants.

gmo-safety.eu at Biotechnica: Information on biosafety research into genetically modified plants. (On screen: video on the Bt maize and honeybee project.)

BMBF Biotech Project Forum: Stefan Rauschen (RWTH Aachen University) presenting the results of a three-year project on the environmental impacts of Bt maize.

Around two hundred people visited the gmo-safety.eu stand and found out about biological safety research in Germany. Even Biotechnica trade visitors were often surprised to learn that publicly funded biosafety research on genetically modified plants has been around for years.

The stand showed a film about a current research project investigating the possible impacts of genetically modified Bt maize on honeybees, and this provided a starting point for many of the discussions with visitors. One visitor, who keeps bees in his spare time, plans to show the video to his beekeeping friends.

Another visitor to the gmo-safety.eu stand, who has just completed a PhD in developmental biology, said he was familiar with the methods and procedures used in plant biotechnology, but had not known that German projects had been researching the safety of GM plants for years. He argued in favour of a ‘case-by-case approach’ for risk assessments of GM plants, and did not believe it was right to reject the technology out of hand.

The last day in particular saw large numbers of biology and biotechnology students and trainees in various biotechnology fields visiting Biotechnica. In the discussions at the gmo-safety.eu stand the students repeatedly said that there was a lack of discussion about plant biotechnology at German universities. “We learn about the whole genetic engineering process at university, but there is no time allocated to discussing this important issue,” reported a biology student from Berlin.

Most of the stand visitors were in favour of the safety research on genetically modified plants funded by the BMBF. And they were interested in the research findings - precisely what gmo-safety.eu is there for.