Which organisms and technologies fall under the mutagenesis exemption of the European GMO-Directive?

authored by
Martin Wasmer, Jürgen Robienski
Abstract

The European GMO-Directive’s (2001/18/EC) mutagenesis exemption may exempt organisms produced by genome editing from the legal obligations of the Directive, according to the recently published opinion of the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). We analyse his opinion and assess that the caveat in Art. 3(1) i.c.w. Annex 1B does not allow the use of nucleic acid vector constructs and CRISPR’s sgRNA. This represents an obstacle for genome editing in plants and animals, since most current setups use vectors. However, alternatives are under way.

Organisation(s)
Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences
External Organisation(s)
University of Geneva
Type
Comment/debate
Journal
Journal fur Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit
Volume
13
Pages
323-327
No. of pages
5
ISSN
1661-5751
Publication date
09.2018
Publication status
Published
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Biotechnology, Food Science, Food Animals, Agronomy and Crop Science
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 2 - Zero Hunger
Electronic version(s)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00003-018-1166-9 (Access: Closed)