Risk assessment challenges of Synthetic Biology

Synthetic Biology is a multidisciplinary and rapidly evolving field which offers the opportunity to develop organisms that will differ fundamentally from existing ones. This opens questions on the risk assessment of these organisms, such as the possible challenges of the scale and speed of genomic changes, uncertainty, challenges to the step-by-step or case-by-case approach of risk assessment and the opportunities provided by new technologies such as “Omics” technologies.

To discuss these important questions, four national advisory bodies, the French High Council for Biotechnology, the German Central Committee on Biological Safety, the Netherlands Commission on Genetic Modification and the Belgian Scientific Institute of Public Health (Biosafety and Biotechnology Unit) decided in 2012 to jointly organize a one day workshop offering a forum for regulators, scientists and risk assessors. The workshop took place on December 12 2012 in Paris. A report of the organizing committee has now been published at the Journal of Consumer Protection and Food Safety.

The report is available through this link