Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Activities of the Gmo Task Force
2009-2010
Christoph Haldemann, Switzerland
Chair GMO Task Force
Cologne, June 2010
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Organisation chart of the GMO Task Force
Permanent Tasks
1_1 Continuation of the Proficiency Test
WG leader: Cheryl Dollard
Members: Elisabeth Bates, Mihael Cristin
Ichim, Ruojing Wang, Ronald Don,
Christoph Haldemann
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Organisation chart of the GMO Task Force
Permanent Tasks (continued)
2_1 Continuation of the accreditation
programme (performance based
approach)
WG leader: Ana Laura Vicario
Members: Sofia Ben Tahar, Lutz Grohmann,
David Grothaus
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Organisation chart of the GMO Task Force
Permanent Tasks (continued)
3_1 Information exchange: (webpage and
workshops)
WG leader: Benjamin Kaufman
Members: Cheryl Dollard, Charlotte
Leonhardt, Bruno Zaccomer, Enrico Noli,
Christoph Haldemann
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Organisation chart of the GMO Task Force
Temporary Tasks
1_2 Identification of stacked genes
WG leader: Jean-Louis Laffont
Members: Kirk Remund, Bruno Zaccomer,
Christoph Haldemann
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Organisation chart of the GMO Task Force
Temporary Tasks (continued)
2_2 Publication of the Proficiency Test
results
WG leader: Kirk Remund
Members: Jean-Louis Laffont, Cheryl
Dollard, Ronald Don, Christoph
Haldemann
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Main activities: 2009-2010
Proficiency Tests
• Finalization of PT12 (Maize: Bt11 devitalized, TC1507, T25)
• Execution of PT13 (Canola: RF3, T45)
• Initiation of PT14 (Soya)
• Planning and activities for future
programs
• Future work: adaptation of the rating for
laboratories not seeking the ISTA accreditation
Presentation by Cheryl Dollard
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Main activities: 2009-2010
Workshops
ISTA Workshop on Variety Testing – an introduction,
using protein electrophoresis and Polymerase Chain
Reaction (PCR) for GMO Detection
April 6-10, 2010, Bangalore, India
Local organizer: Dr. G.V. Jagadish
Variety identification: Norbert Leist, Rainer Knoblauch
PCR Testing: Benjamin Kaufman
Statistics, sampling and data analysis: Kirk Remund
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Main activities: 2009-2010
Workshops (continued)
ISTA Workshop on GMO Testing
June 8-12, 2010, Oberschleissheim, Germany
Local organizer: Dr. Ulrich Busch
PCR Testing: Benjamin Kaufman, Cheryl Dollard, Bruno
Zaccomer, Clara Alarcon
Statistics, sampling and data analysis: Jean-Louis Laffont
Presentation by Benjamin Kaufman
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Main activities: 2009-2010
Identification of stacked genes
Significant improvement for the assessing of
seeds with stacks in conventional seed lots.
This useful tool will soon be available on the
ISTA webpage.
Presentation by Jean-Louis Laffont
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Main activities: 2009-2010
Publication of the Proficiency Test results
A first draft version will be available soon
The main work for this publication has been done by
the statisticians Kirk Remund and Jean-Louis Laffont
Presentation by Kirk Remund
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Main activities: 2009-2010
New GMO Database
Building of a new GMO Database for the
administration of the PT results
• This Database is based on Microsoft Access and loacated at
the ISTA secretariat in Bassersdorf, Switzerland
• The Database can also be used for other PTs
• The first time it will be fully come into operation for PT14
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Main activities for the coming
triennium
• Continuation of the PT program
• Organising of Workshops in collaboration with the
statistic committee
• Update of the Information Platform for GM seed
• Discussion and decision whether ISTA should
develop its own methods for GMO testing
•Collaboration with other organisations
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Development of ISTA methods for GMO Testing
Introduction
To come to a decision whether ISTA should develop its
own methods for GMO testing and prescribe them to ISTA
accredited laboratories, some crucial points have to be
taken into consideration
The next slides try to give a short overview about this
relatively complex issue and is thought as a first basis of
decision-making
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Development of ISTA methods for GMO Testing
Different countries – Different legal situations
• The commercialisation of GMOs is a regulated activity and
different countries have different authorisation procedures
• This leads to the fact that GM crops don’t get simultaneously
approved everywhere
• This asynchronous approval has an economic impact on
international trade and may cause rejections of imports that
contain only traces of not (yet) authorized GMOs
• In the EU such incidents have already disrupted trade and
economic problems
• Because of the differing regulations in each country, the
detection requirements for the GMO testing can be quite
different
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Development of ISTA methods for GMO Testing
Current situation
• The global hectarage of GMOs has continued to
grow in 2009 and reached 134 million hectares
• Since 1996 the mean year-to-year growth is 7%
equal to 9 million hectares
• 25 countries planted GMOs in 2009 – 10 in Central
and South America
Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2009, C. James, ISAAA
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Development of ISTA methods for GMO Testing
What has to be expected in the future
• Today around 30 commercial GM events are cultivated
worldwide, by 2015 the prediction is that there will be
over 120
• Moreover, individual GM events can easily be combined
(‘stacked’) by conventional cross-breeding
• Apart from the current main traits , new commercial
traits covering crop composition and abiotic stress
tolerance will become available
The global pipeline of new GM crops: implications of asynchronous
approval for international trade, 2009
Office for Official Publications of the European Communities
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Development of ISTA methods for GMO Testing
Schematic depiction of a GMO construct
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Development of ISTA methods for GMO Testing
Analytical aspects
• For the time being there is no method available which
can detect (and quantify) all GMOs in one single test
• For the specific detection of each single GMO an event
specific method is needed
• There are screening methods available which allow to
detect several GMOs at the same time
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Development of ISTA methods for GMO Testing
Analytical Methods and Costs
Courtesy of Ray Shillito
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Development of ISTA methods for GMO Testing
Different types of methods - Different scopes of
application
• Bioassay tests can be used for herbicide tolerant GMOs only
• Protein based methods are only useful if the inserted genes
are expressed in the tissue (e.g. BT176 does not express in
seed)
• DNA based methods such as PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction)
can detect all kind of GMOs under the condition that the
inserted sequence is known
• Bioassay and protein based methods therefore have limited
application field while PCR based testing is more applicable
(but requires a relative expensive equipment and
sophisticated demands on the result interpretation)
• This is why in Europe the DNA based method (PCR) is well
accepted and the most used method for GMO testing
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Development of ISTA methods for GMO
Testing
Characteristics of the PCR approach
The Polymerase Chain Reaction allows:
• event specific detection of a GMO
• testing more than one GMO at the same time (multiplex PCR)
• quantification of a specific GMO (under the condition
reference material is available)
Prerequisite:
The DNA sequence of the insert, resp. the boundary between
the insert and the plant genome has to be known
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Development of ISTA methods for GMO Testing
Different specifities of DNA-based Methods (PCR)
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Development of ISTA methods for GMO Testing
Conclusions
The development of methods for GMO testing is:
• Expensive
• Time consuming
It requires:
• Great demands on excellent collaboration and information
exchange with the seed industry is indispensable
• The methods have to be established in a short period of time
since the request for new methods change fast
• (Cetrified) Reference Material
• Etc.
An event specific method which works today, probably
tomorrow won’t any longer, due to new similar events
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Expression of thanks
• Statistics Committee
• Ronald Don who took over the TCOM position of
Norberto De Atrip
• Jette Nydam Hansen and Rasha El-Khadam
from the ISTA accreditation department
• Nadine Ettel and Agnes Hegedüs, ISTA Secretariat
• Andrea Jonitz and Uwe Bertrand, both from
the Agricultural Technology Park,
Augustenberg, Karlsruhe, Germany
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Expression of thanks (GMO Task Force members)
• Elisabeth Bates, Belgium
• Sofia Ben Tahar, France
• Cheryl Dollard, Canada
• Lutz Grohmann, Germany
• David Grothaus, USA
• Mihael Cristin Ichim, Romania
• Benjamin Kaufman, USA
• Jean-Louis Laffont, France
• Charlotte Leonhardt, Austria
• Enrico Noli, Italy
• Kirk Remund, USA
• Ana Laura Vicario, Argentina
• Ruojing Wang, Canada
• Bruno Zaccomer, France
• and many many more…
Without all these very active persons the GMO TF program couldn’t have been
realized successfully
Saturday, 19 June 2010 GMO Task Force (17:00-18:30)
Thank you for your attention
www.seedtest.org