Early- Career Reseachers in The EU STAND UP For Trust in Science

 

 

 

 

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We are EcoProg - Eco-progressive Network a newly formed association from Germany striving for an ecological, technologi-cal, and evidence-based dialogue between the public and the scientific world.

 

Reaching out and cross -linking progressive movements and sci-entists throughout the European Union is always a great idea. But today, there is a more acute rationale to our writing: By April 30, the EU Commission will deliver a study on the ECJ’s judgment in case C-528/16 regarding the status of genome -edited plants under the current GMO legislation. And we just don’t want the scientific world to go unheard.

 

In the light of the great sustainability challenges ahead, rebuil-ding trust in science is sorely needed. This is why we ask you to join #GiveGenesAChance. We would be very happy to have your support for the campaign and therefore, we would ask you to sign the attached joint statement via our Google form.

 

Additionally, we plan to collect statements, pictures, and short clips of early-career researchers across the EU. We would com-bine these contributions and release them around the publicati-on date of the EC study. In the end, it will look something like this our prototype video.

 

The deadline for video contributions is April 19, 2021.

 

 

Please also forward this e-mail to researchers, institutes, or NGOs throughout the EU that might want to join forces as well.

 

With regards and on behalf of EcoProg, Svenja Augustin & David Spencer

 

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This is the joint statement for the #GiveGenesAChance cam-paign. It is not in its final layout yet. If would like to suggest

some edits, feel free to mail Svenja. If you would like to sign the joint statement, please fill our Google form.

 

 

In April 2021, the EU Commission will publish a study on the judgment of the Euro-pean Court of Justice (ECJ) regarding the status of Novel Genomic Techniques (NGTs) under Union law. This study will contain information on the status and use of biotechnological methods developed since 2001, in plants, animals, and micro-organisms for agri-food, industrial, and pharmaceutical application. Additionally, it will cover an overview of the risk assessment of plants developed through NGTs [1]. In 2018, the ECJ's ruling in case C-528/16 including the status of genome-edited (GE) plants resulted in their strict regulation under the legal framework for genetical-ly modified organisms (GMO Directive 2001/18/EC). Therefore, their release, placing on the market, labeling, and traceability have to follow the same regulations as transgenic plants produced with other biotechnological methods. As a consequence, there are currently no crops released on the European market that were developed using NGTs, such as CRISPR, TALEN, or comparable techniques [1]. In contrast to this process -based approach on NGT regulation, many countries outside of the Euro-pean Union (e.g. Australia, New Zealand, and Japan) decided on an evidence-based product-oriented regulation.

 

 

As early-career researchers in the fields of biotechnology, plant biology, and bree-ding throughout Europe, this regulation affects not only the application of our basic research results but also hinders the validation of scientific findings under real en-vironmental conditions by complicating field trials. Several scientific societies publis-hed statements as well as recommendations regarding the European legal and politi-cal frameworks around new breeding technologies and their applications [2, 3]. As scientists from different research institutes within the European Union, we are con-cerned about growing discrepancies between scientific consensus and political ac-tions. With our knowledge and professional education, we can and wish to contribute to a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly European agriculture as well as a secured food supply for a growing population.

 

In contrast to previous technologies for the generation of GMOs, new breeding tech-nologies are usually not utilized to insert genetic sequences from the same or diffe-rent species into the plants genetic material. Instead, genome editing is widely used to introduce targeted point mutations, insertions, and deletions of single nucleotides without introducing (foreign) DNA into the plant's genome. These changes are indis-tinguishable from naturally and spontaneously occurring mutations or those induced in the context of conventional breeding by chemical or radioactive mutagenesis [4]. In 2019, a report of the European Network of GMO Laboratories concluded that un-ambiguous detection and tracing of mutations induced by genome editing without previous knowledge about the given mutation is likely to fail [5]. The main difference between the two breeding approaches is that in genome editing the locations of the mutations are not left to chance. Instead, changes in the DNA are induced at previ-ously defined positions within the target genes. This enables a faster translation of basic research results into application. Therefore, according to the

 

JOINT STATEMENT:

 

current state of knowledge including an assessment by the EFSA Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms, an evidence-based risk assessment

 

does not see any greater risks in the application of targeted mutagenesis in compari-son with conventional breeding methods [6].

Possible results of new breeding technologies span from increased yields [7], and in-creased yield-stability under adverse climate conditions such as drought [8], and in-creasing soil salinity [9], to resistances against plant pathogens like viruses [10] and pathogenic fungi [11]. With respect to climate change, two IPCC reports mention the potential of new breeding technologies [12, 13]. The resulting crops could not only be more resilient and sustainable, but they could also contribute to carbon sequest-ration and reduced soil erosion. Other aims of GE-assisted breeding could include crops with an improved nutritional value which are already marketed in the USA and Japan [14, 15], or the de novo domestication of wild crop relatives [16, 17]. This would increase the available genetic resources for breeding and could benefit (genetic) biodiversity in agriculture.

 

Breeding and releasing a stable high-quality crop variety takes between 10 and 20 years. Therefore, the development of plants we need by 2040 has to start now. Lo-cally adapted, resilient, and nutrient-efficient plant varieties are essential to provide food, medicine, and fibers. While the demand for such goods will increase with the growth of the global population, the area of arable land will decrease due to the ad-verse effects of climate change and necessary biodiversity conservation projects. Given the urgency to develop more resilient and diverse crops, plant breeding should have the widest possible range of safe methods at its disposal. Instead of the legisla-tion and admission of crop varieties based on the method used for their production, we strongly favor a product-oriented approach with case-by-case admissions regar-dless of the production process. This would allow plant breeders to employ new bree-ding technologies for seed production while still enabling the European Union and its member states to control for sustainable and environmentally safe application. As a final remark, we would like to disclose that NGTs are not a universal remedy for the environmental and climate change-related tasks at hand. But they are a valuable ad-dition to the methods of plant breeding and the current legal framework around them will negatively impact plant research and breeding in the European Union.

 

 

Therefore, we urge you to reconsider the current state of the regulations that apply to the cultivation and release of genome-edited plants in Europe.