How to Confine Genetically Engineered Organisms

Developers of genetically engineered organisms (GEOs) need to consider how biologic techniques such as induced sterility can prevent transgenic animals and plants from escaping into natural ecosystems and breeding or passing engineered traits to other species, according to a report from the U.S. National Research Council, requested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Since no single "bioconfinement” method is likely to be 100% effective, developers of GEOs should use more than one method to lower the risk of failure, states the report. Scientists need to conduct more research to understand how well specific methods work. Planned combinations of confinement methods need to be tested in organisms with representative genetic profiles and in a variety of environments. Among the GEOs seen as posing environmental danger are transgenic crops engineered to tolerate herbicides or resist diseases and pests, since they may be able to pass their genes on to weedy relatives. Another example is transgenic fish that could escape and mate with wild counterparts, or plants engineered to produce pharmaceuticals that might harm humans.

"Deciding whether or how to confine a genetically engineered organism cannot be an afterthought,” said T. Kent Kirk, committee chair, and professor emeritus, department of bacteriology, University of Wisconsin (Madison, USA). "Confinement won't be warranted in most cases, but when it is, worst-case scenarios and their probabilities should be considered.”




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National Research Council