Participation in EU Network of GMO Laboratories
GEVES provides a GMO detection and quantification testing service for the French Ministry of Agriculture as part of their official control regime. These controls are carried out on seed lots entering the EU to check for the absence of non-authorised GMOs.
As the French National Reference Laboratory (NRL) for GMO in maize (seed), and soy, rapeseed and flax (seed and plants), BioGEVES recently participated in the 15th Workshop of the GMO NRLs and the 30th European Network of GMO Laboratories plenary meeting. These meetings were held across 3 days (30 September – 2 October 2019) at the ISPRA-Italy site of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and were organised by the European Union Reference Laboratory (EURL) which is also based at the JRC. The first day of meetings was reserved for exchanges between the NRLs and official control laboratories from each EU member state. The following day was spent informing the ENGL member laboratories about the latest updates from the European Commission Health and Food Safety department and from the EURL, as well as from ENGL working groups mandated to work on guidelines on several subjects including DNA extraction, multiplex PCR and sequencing for GMO detection. A final day was given over to an open science day with external researchers and experts invited to give presentations about various subjects including the latest techniques for the modification of genomes (CRISPR), as well as presentations and discussions about the possibilities and limits of high throughput sequencing for the detection and identification of GMOs. The ENGL meetings are held annually, further information is available on the European Commission’s website.
