Category: GMO Food

Three eggs in a carton with sad faces drawn on.

Can Ethical Labelling Make Food Systems Healthy, Sustainable, and Just?

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Christine Parker

Consumers are often encouraged to “vote with their fork” and “say no” to unhealthy, unsustainable and unfair food. Food packaging is typically littered with claims about the nutrition, ethics and social goods associated with the product inside. Claims like “organic”, “GMO free”, “fair trade”, and “anti-biotic free” are common. But can consumer preference base labelling make a difference to the health, sustainability and ethics challenges facing the food system?

Governments, civil society groups and industry all act as if label claims make a big impact on consumers and food businesses. Governments mandate that certain safety and nutritional information should be displayed on food labels. Public health advocates campaign for mandatory disclosure of more information (like added sugars) hoping  it will nudge both consumers and businesses towards healthier options. Businesses use label claims to promote themselves as ethical and environmentally responsible. A plethora of other groups have put forward their own independent certifications and trademarks from dolphin friendly tuna to sustainably farmed coffee. Read More

Close-up of a mosquito on human skin

Of Risk and Gene Drives

James Toomey Leave a comment

A few weeks ago, I attended a panel on gene editing at Harvard Medical School that covered some aspects of the science, ethics, and law of the practice. It was an interesting talk, in part because it largely covered the ethical issues of gene editing for human medicine and in other species as two sides of the same coin, rather than as fundamentally different conversations, as they are often treated.

Indeed, one member of the audience asked why there is so much focus on the safety and ethics of human gene editing, when the stakes, he argued, are much higher in the use of gene editing for environmental engineering. A botched human germline edit could harm a family; a botched gene drive could kill us all. It’s an interesting point. And because it suggests that we may want to be less than sanguine on the use of gene drives to eradicate malaria, on which I have previously been extremely sanguine, it is a point worth responding to. Read More

Close up of a mosquito sucking blood on human skin. This mosquito is a carrier of Malaria, Encephalitis, Dengue and Zika virus.

Malaria Eradication: For Africa as America

James Toomey Leave a comment

There is a page in the history books waiting to be written for the eradication of malaria. In recent years, malaria has killed more people globally than war—it’s killed predominately children, and predominately in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite being curable, and eliminated from most developed countries, malaria is the fifth deadliest infectious disease in the world.

A team of scientists in Italy is looking to write that history. Read More

Copenhagen Conference: Legal Perspectives on Synthetic Biology and Gene Editing

Timo Minssen Leave a comment

Join us at the Centre for Information and Innovation Law (CIIR) Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen on 20 November, 2017 to discuss Legal Perspectives on Synthetic Biology and Gene Editing.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Emerging technologies in Synthetic Biology and Gene Editing offer incredible opportunities and promising solutions to some of the most urgent challenges faced by humanity, such as climate change, environmental protection, growing population, renewable energy and improved health care. But the emerging applications also raise exceptional ethical, legal and social questions.

This conference marks the final phase of the participation of the Copenhagen Biotech and Pharma Forum (CBPF) Research Group at the Centre for Information and Innovation Law (CIIR) in the cross-faculty research project BioSYNergy. In accordance with the goals of this large cross-faculty project on Synthetic Biology, the event explores legal perspectives on synthetic biology, systems biology and gene editing. Dealing with the legal responses to ethical and scientific challenges raised by emerging life science technology. Read More

Bold New Policies for The Brave New Biologies: IPRs and Innovation in Synthetic Biology and Gene editing

Timo Minssen Leave a comment

Research Seminar at the University of Copenhagen debating intellectual property and innovation in synthetic biology, systems biology & gene editing.

New technologies in biology offer a brave new world of possibilities. Promising solutions to some of the most urgent challenges faced by humanity: climate change, environmental protection, growing population, renewable energy and improved health care. Scientific and technological progress has been remarkable. Simultaneously, emerging life science technologies raise outstanding ethical, legal and social questions.

In this research seminar, Prof. Esther Van Zimmeren from the University of Antwerp joins Prof. Timo Minssen, Postdoc Ana Nordberg and Ph.D. Student Jakob Wested from the Centre for Information and Innovation Law, debating bold new policies for intellectual property law and incentive to life science innovation.

Programme

15:00 – 15:10 Welcome
Prof. Timo Minssen, CIIR, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen.
15:10 – 15:30 Waiting for the Rumble in the Jungle: – An overview of current CRISPR/CAs9 patent disputes, central legal issues and some thoughts on conditioning the innovation system.
PhD Student Jakob Wested, CIIR, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen.
15:30 – 15:50 From FRAND to FAIR for Synthetic and Systems Biology? The Implications of Openness, IP Strategies, Standardization and the Huawei-case.
Prof. Esther van Zimmeren, Faculty of Law, University of Antwerp.
15:50 – 16:10 Keeping up with the technologies: IP Law and Regulation in the age of gene editing.
Postdoc Ana Nordberg, CIIR, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen.
16.10 – 17.00 Questions and panel debate

Time: 13 March 2017, 15:00 – 17:00

Venue: Meeting Room 7A-2-04 , Faculty of Law, Njalsgade 76, DK-2300 Copenhagen S

Registration:
The event is free to attend. Registration is mandatory. Please use this registration form no later than Monday, 13 March 2017, 11:00 at the latest.

Organizer: Copenhagen Biotech & Pharma Forum, at CIIR, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen

Minnesota: Leading The Way In Patient Safety

John Tingle Leave a comment

By John Tingle

The UK Government and the Department of Health are taking patient safety very seriously and, since the publication of ‘An organisation with a memory’ in 2000, the UK has like the USA been a world leader in the field of patient safety policies, practices and developments.

In the UK we have a very sophisticated patient NHS (National Health Service) patient safety infrastructure and system along with a NHS Adverse incident reporting system, the NRLS (National Reporting and Learning System). Despite having such a ‘Rolls Royce’, well-established patient safety infrastructure and system, terrible patient safety incidents such as that which happened in Mid Staffordshire a few years ago seem to plague the NHS. Patients died because of poor care and, according to the report, “[t]he Inquiry identifies a story of terrible and unnecessary suffering of hundreds of people who were failed by a system which ignored the warning signs of poor care and put corporate self-interest and cost control ahead of patients and their safety.”Our patient system missed the terrible care failings identified in this inquiry report. We are working hard on improving the system and my posts will provide regular updates on what is happening in the UK, Europe and beyond in patient safety.

Patient Safety: A World Problem Read More

The FDA de-regulates the first genetically-engineered animal

jsax 2 Comments

By Joanna Sax

On November 19, 2015, the FDA de-regulated the AquAdvantage Salmon.  This salmon is genetically engineered to grow faster.  This is the first time the FDA has de-regulated a genetically engineered animal.

Let me just say from the outset that the scientific consensus is clear that genetically engineered food is as safe as conventional food.  Despite the onslaught of public outrage against GMO food, most of the main arguments against GMO food are just hype.

The genie came out of the bottle a long time ago and it’s not going back in.  This happens time and again with scientific advances.   Over the past few decades, our ability to understand, manipulate, edit, and otherwise employ the DNA of various organisms to facilitate human understanding has grown exponentially.  Efforts to resist, combat, or villain-ize the application of biotechnology to impact society might delay, but will not ultimately succeed in keeping the application of scientific discoveries at bay.

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The Impact of Broccoli II and Tomato II on European patents in conventional breeding, GMO’s and Synthetic Biology: A grand finale of a juicy patents tale?

Timo Minssen Leave a comment

By Timo Minssen

I am pleased to announce our recent paper entitled “The Impact of Broccoli II & Tomato II on European patents in conventional breeding, GMO’s and Synthetic Biology: The grand finale of a juicy patents tale?”, which is available on SSRN, and forthcoming in Biotechnology Law Report, Vol. 34, Number 3 (June 2015), pp. 1-18.

Our analysis deals with a seminal judgment on the controversial and sometimes even emotionally debated European “Broccoli” and “Tomato” patents, which has captivated the European patent and plant science communities for many years: On March 25, 2015, the EBA of the European Patent Office (EBA) finally issued its much awaited decisions on the consolidated referrals G2/12 (“Tomato II”) and G2/13 (“Broccoli II”), clarifying the exclusion from patentability of essentially biological processes, such as conventional crossing and selection, and in particular its impact on the patentability of claims for products resulting from such processes. The so-called “Tomato II” case concerned an invention entitled “method for breeding tomatoes having reduced water content and product of the method,” whereas the so-called “Broccoli II” case involved an invention of a “method for selective increase of the anticarcinogenic glucosinolates in brassica species”. Read More

What are GM Foods?

jsax 3 Comments

By Joanna Sax
[Ed Note: Cross posted at HealthLawProfBlog.]

I read a lot of press and listen to the politics surrounding genetically modified (GM) foods; but it appears that there is a lack of understanding that almost all of our food supply is integrated with GM crops. I imagine that many readers of this blog already know this, so this may simply be background for some of you.

The focus of the debate appears to be on GM foods that contain some sort of exogenous genetic modification that allows them to be pest or insect resistant, either through DNA or RNAi. That is, a specific DNA or RNAi sequence is inserted into the seed that is known to interfere with a biochemical reaction that allows, for example, the crop to be resistant to a specific type of pest.

But, the reality is that almost all of our crops are genetically modified, if not through the insertion of exogenous DNA or RNAi, then through various husbandry techniques. For example, seeds may be hit with UV radiation, which causes double stranded DNA breaks and subsequent mutations. These seeds are then selected for desired traits, such as pest resistance or other hardy characteristics. So, then through husbandry techniques, the seeds are grown into crops with mutations to the endogenous DNA. For these crops, we know that they demonstrate some sort of feature that is desirable to the farmer (or consumer), but we have little idea about what other mutations they may carry.

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