REGULATORY CONTROL OF NEW GENETIC ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGIES SCRUTINISED

20 October 2016

Regulatory Control of New Genetic Engineering Technologies Scrutinised

A consultative workshop on the Regulatory Implications of New Genetic Engineering Technologies will be held on 11 October 2016 to inform a consensus study of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf).

Biotechnology is a dynamic field and technologies are continually advancing. A number of new genetic technologies have been developed since the implementation of the biosafety regulations for South Africa in 1997. Regulatory control of new technologies is a necessary and ongoing process to ensure that South African policy appropriately and adequately addresses biosafety requirements to ensure safe and sustainable products. It should also be ensured that regulatory requirements are appropriate to the technologies or products.

The study currently being undertaken by ASSAf interrogates the biosafety implications of new genetic engineering technologies and adherence to the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) Act and the robustness of the current biosafety regulations to accommodate/cater for new technologies.

The objectives of the workshop are to:

  1. Evaluate the risk/benefit implications and ethics of all relevant new technologies (generally, but also with specific reference to their ability to sustain the diversity of agricultural crops, their ability to improve the agronomy, production and/or value of the crops).
  2. Determine – with justification - which new technologies should fall under the GMO Act and which do not.
  3. Outline a framework which can be used to assess the applicability of future technologies to the existing GMO Act and regulations.
  4. Assess the appropriateness of the South African biosafety regulatory framework for biosafety risk evaluation and management of all relevant new technologies.
  5. Where appropriate, recommend modifications/revisions and/or additions to the existing regulations, individually or collectively, for the new technologies.

Workshop discussions will also include the current global approaches to the regulation of these new technologies.

Some 40 delegates representing various organisations and stakeholders in the field are expected to attend the workshop.

Enquiries: Phakamile Mngadi at phakamile@assaf.org.za

Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) celebrates its 20th year as official academy of South Africa this year. ASSAf was inaugurated in May 1996. It was formed in response to the need for an Academy of Science consonant with the dawn of democracy in South Africa: activist in its mission of using science and scholarship for the benefit of society, with a mandate encompassing all scholarly disciplines that use an open-minded and evidence-based approach to build knowledge.

ASSAf thus adopted in its name the term 'science' in the singular as reflecting a common way of enquiring rather than an aggregation of different disciplines. Its Members are elected on the basis of a combination of two principal criteria, academic excellence and significant contributions to society.

The Parliament of South Africa passed the Academy of Science of South Africa Act (Act 67 of 2001), which came into force on 15 May 2002. This made ASSAf the only academy of science in South Africa officially recognised by government and representing the country in the international community of science academies and elsewhere.

For more on the history of ASSAf

Enquiries
Patricia Scholtz
Communication Manager
Tel: +27 12 349 6618
Cell: +27 82 550 0757
Email: patsy@assaf.org.za
www.assaf.org.za

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