Novel approaches in genetic engineering in relation to the current regulatory frameworks

Abstract: Enormous research efforts and huge amount of funds have supported for more than adecade the studies of potential ecological risks of genetically modified organisms all over theWorld, especially in Europe. This vast amount of effort on this type of research with the firstgeneration of transgenic crops, currently grown over 148 million hectares in the World, haverevealed that cultivation of those crops have no negative impact on the environment that exceedsthat of conventional agricultural practices. Today, new and more elaborated alternative methodsare available for plant and microbial breeding, and their products will sooner or later besubmitted for commercialization. These new methods differ substantially from the classicalapproaches of genetic engineering. Thus the definition of GMO has to be revisited since some ofthe products derived may not need to be regarded as GM and thus not assessed based on theGMO regulation.