The Ecological Dimension of the European Union Biotechnology Programmes: from genes to Prenormative data

In recent years biotechnology has promoted new opportunities for sustainable economic activity with the potential to offer solutions to solve key global problems ranging from health care to food production and pollution control through bioremediation. Research and development in these areas is essentially end-user driven and has accelerated in recent years. A number of transgenic organisms including plants, fish and microorganisms have been developed that have commercial potential and EU research programmes in biotechnology have contributed to these developments.

Developments in biotechnology can be linked to some key areas of socio-economic relevance. These include inputs on industrial development, employment, human health and law and ethics. However the links between the development of biotechnology and consideration for the environment are emerging as a major issue. The entire biotechnology sector is governed by an international regulatory framework. For example the EU Directive 90/220/EC relates to the safety measures for the deliberate release into the environment of genetically-modified organisms (Table 2).

Environmental biotechnology has therefore to deal with biosafety issues relating to the use of products and processes developed by biotechnology. On the other hand, environmental biotechnology has also to address the scientific development of products and processes that can help maintain and improve our environment for future generations. Faced with these diverse and challenging objectives the EU biotechnology programmes incorporated specific sectors to deal with addressing some of these needs (Table 3).

In the phased development of biotechnology it is important to ensure the safe application of biotechnology and to provide relevant base line information suitable for regulatory agencies and the general public. To achieve this the European Union has within its BAP (1985-1990), BRIDGE (1990-1993) and BIOTECH I (1992-1994) and BIOTECH II (1994-1998) research programmes given increasing commitment to research and development in the areas of molecular ecology, biosafety and prenormative research (see Table 4).

Achievements from the first EU initiatives in microbial ecology and biosafety under the BAP and BRIDGE programmes have included research on the biosafety implications of horizontal gene transfer especially in transgenic plants and microbes.

Areas of research have ranged from assessments of the safety of biopesticides (baculoviruses) and testing live vaccines (antirabies) to developing tools for monitoring and biological containment which will lead to the safe application of biotechnology in the environment (see Table 5a).

New molecular techniques directed towards identification of microorganisms have been developed including automated strategies with potential for describing microbial diversity (see Table 5b).

The development and application of molecular methods for the monitoring of genes and organisms permits ecological studies to proceed at a molecular level. More information is needed on how an introduced organism interacts with its target ecosystem. This is especially true for the release of engineered microorganisms; therefore recent research efforts in the BIOTECH I programme have been directed towards basic molecular ecology, utilising the tools developed in the previous programmes of BAP and BRIDGE (see Table 5c-d)

An ecological perspective is essential for the successful application of microbial-based processes such as biocontrol, biomonitoring and bioremediation. The European Union's research programmes have focused on these areas where a detailed knowledge of the ecological implications of releasing genetically-modified organisms is necessary for commercial exploitation.

EU Actions in DGXII Biotechnology Programmes

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