Hello! The crisper-gate made it into this week¹s Nature news section: http://www.nature.com/news/diy-gene-engineering-an-attack-on-darwinism-and-a -probe-into-nazi-science-1.21965?WT
DIY memo The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in Stockholm has called on European Union member states to review their procedures for authorizing do-it-yourself gene-engineering kits produced in the United States. The kits, which are intended to contain a harmless strain of the common laboratory bacterium Escherichia coli, use CRISPR precision-editing technologies and are targeted at citizen scientists. The move followed the discovery in March by German authorities that some kits had been contaminated with pathogenic bacteria, including some multidrug-resistant strains. Germany has since banned their import. The ECDC¹s assessment report <http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/press/news/_layouts/forms/News_DispForm.aspx?ID=16 10&List=8db7286c-fe2d-476c-9133-18ff4cb1b568&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fecdc%2Eeuro pa%2Eeu%2Fen%2Fpress%2Fnews%2FPages%2FNews%2Easpx> concluded that the risk of infection to users is low. ECDC assesses risk of do-it-yourself¹ CRISPR gene engineering kit contaminated with pathogenic bacteria http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/press/news/_layouts/forms/News_DispForm.aspx?ID=161 0&List=8db7286c-fe2d-476c-9133-18ff4cb1b568&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fecdc%2Eeurop a%2Eeu%2Fen%2Fpress%2Fnews%2FPages%2FNews%2Easpx They conclude that infections risk is low but that all European authorties should check on their legislation regarding DIYBio kits and they recommend to only buy kits from professional companies who carry out proper quality assessment. http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/_layouts/forms/Publication_DispForm.as px?List=4f55ad51-4aed-4d32-b960-af70113dbb90&ID=1692 Cheers, Markus Dr. Markus Schmidt BIOFACTION KG Kundmanngasse 39/12 1030 Vienna, Austria www.biofaction.com [email protected]
