Researchers propose new framework for regulating engineered crops

A Policy Forum article published today in Science calls for a new approach to regulating genetically engineered (GE) crops, arguing that current approaches for triggering safety testing vary dramatically among countries and generally lack scientific merit—particularly as advances in crop breeding have blurred the lines between conventional breeding and genetic engineering. Rather than focusing on the methods and processes behind the creation of a GE crop to determine if testing is needed, a more effective framework would examine the specific new characteristics of the crop itself by using so-called “-omics” approaches, the article asserts. In the same way that biomedical sciences can use genomic approaches to scan human genomes for problematic mutations, genomics can be used to scan new crop varieties for unexpected DNA changes.

More related to this: