Short CV
Michael Meissle is Senior Scientist at Agroscope, the agricultural research institute of the Swiss government. He studied biology in Munich and conducted his PhD at Agroscope in Zurich until 2009. Research fellowships allowed him to gain experience in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia. He is currently deputy leader of the Biosafety research group at Agroscope, which is focusing on risks and benefits of genetically modified (GM) plants and of introduced exotic arthropods.
Michael Meissle has been working in the area of non-target risk assessment since 2001. His research interests cover laboratory, field, and landscape-level effects of GM crops on arthropods; multitrophic interactions between plants, arthropods, and microorganisms; transfer of Bt proteins between trophic levels (using ELISA); bioactivity of insecticidal proteins in plants and arthropods (using sensitive insect bioassays). His involvement in the EU project ENDURE allowed him to gain experience with IPM in European maize production, where he published on pests, pesticide use and the role of Bt maize in IPM. Systematic literature reviews on arthropods in European agricultural crops have been conducted by Michael Meissle for the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the EU-project GRACE.
Michael Meissle has been active in the IOBC-WPRS Working Group on GMOs in Integrated Crop Protection since its establishment in 2003. He attended all meetings and presented his research in oral and poster presentations. He has also been co-editor of the IOBC-WPRS Bulletins of the Working Group. Since 2013 he acts as convenor of this group.