Biosafety and the environmental uses of micro-organisms : conference proceedings.

Description

"This publication constitutes the proceedings of the OECD conference on the "Environmental Uses of Micro-Organisms: An Overview of the State-of-the-Art and Implications for Biotechnology Risk/Safety Assessment". This event, organised under the auspices of OECD's Working Group on the Harmonisation of Regulatory Oversight in Biotechnology (WG-HROB), was held on 26-27 March 2012. ... It was developed in collaboration with the OECD Co-operative Research Programme under the Trade and Agriculture Directorate. ... There have been many scientific developments in recent years related to the use of micro-organisms in the environment and the conference was an opportunity to provide an overview of the current situation, focusing on concrete or expected developments involving the use of transgenic micro-organisms in the environment."--  Read more... Introduction: micro-organisms, public health and the environment -- Part I. The use of micro-organisms in agriculture. Biofertilizers: present and future use of transgenic micro-organisms -- Phytosanitation and the development of transgenic biocontrol agents -- Lessons on the impact of genetically engineered micro-organisms on natural ecosystems like soil -- Part II. The use of microalgae for production purposes. The need and risks of using transgenic microalgae for the production of food, feed, chemicals and fuels -- The benefits and advantages of commercial algal biomass harvesting -- Issues in the risk assessment of the use of microalgae for production purposes -- Part III. The use of micro-organisms for bioremediation. Designing bacteria for the environment: from trial and error to earnest engineering -- The intentional release of micro-organisms into the environment: challenges to commercial use -- Part IV. The use of micro-organisms in cleaning products. Microbial-based cleaning products in use and the potential role of transgenic micro-organisms -- Microbes in cleaning products: regulatory experience and challenges for risk assessment -- Part V. Environmental application of microbial symbionts of insects. Use and release of mosquitoes for the control of dengue transmission: a world-first trial in Australia -- Fighting malaria with engineered mosquito symbiotic bacteria -- Part VI. Environmental risk assessment of the deliberate release of engineered micro-organisms. Next generation sequencing-based metagenomics for monitoring soil microbiota -- Reflection on environmental risk assessment of micro-organisms -- Risk assessment considerations of genetically modified micro-organisms for releases -- Overarching issues in the environmental risk assessment of deliberate release of transgenic micro-organisms.