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In early August, the European Commission launched a multilingual online public consultation on its forthcoming “Biotechnology Regulation”. Presented as an exercise in transparency and citizen participation, the questionnaire is in fact primarily designed to gather the industry’s position. In particular, it does not address the ethical and civic dimensions raised by new genome editing techniques (NGTs), such as health risks, the appropriation of living organisms by industry, or the management of health data. This regulation could offer the Commission and multinationals a way out if current or past negotiations on other legislative acts fail to achieve their objectives.

The Asilomar Conference (California, United States) on ‘recombinant DNA’ was organised in 1975 by molecular biology researchers. Its aim was to define the safety conditions necessary for handling genetically modified bacteria shortly after the first attempts at transgenesis.
Today, despite their medical, agricultural and environmental promises, biotechnological advances, combined with other technologies such as ‘artificial intelligence’, are above all a sword of Damocles hanging over all living things. In 2025, a new Asilomar conference failed to produce a joint statement by the participants.

On August 6, 2025, the agri-food group Mars acquired a license to use CRISPR tools from the biotech company Pairwise with the aim of developing genetically modified cocoa trees. If this partnership between the biotech and agri-food worlds is worth looking into, it is because it concerns the world leader in chocolate products, which has been interested in the issue for several years now.

When reading legislation, one sometimes finds oneself thinking that it is a good thing that legislators are not responsible for editing the dictionaries in our libraries. The specific case of the term “microorganism” provides a striking example. Behind this term lie biological entities whose contours vary according to the regulatory texts. Bacteria, yeasts, algae, nematodes, even DNA or seeds: these are just some of the examples given by various regulatory texts, which show that the legislative definition of “microorganisms” has constantly varied according to economic interests. What do these texts have in common? They all can blur the traceability requirements imposed by GMO legislation.

Since 3 May 2022, the European Commission has launched numerous legislative initiatives relating to living organisms. The deregulation of plants and certain GMO micro-organisms, the digitisation of living organisms and patents are all topics being discussed by Member States and the European Parliament. If adopted, these projects would make it easier for companies with the means to appropriate living organisms. What is the current status of these projects? Inf’OGM takes stock.

At the end of July 2025, the EU Biotech and Life Sciences Alliance was quietly launched in the European Parliament. Supported by the lobby group Europabio, its aim is to bring together MEPs to “ensure that the [European] Union takes bold and coordinated action” to strengthen its biotechnology sector. While this initiative reflects a desire to maintain Europe’s competitiveness, it raises a major political question: where does democratic representation end and institutionalised lobbying begin?

New negotiations on digital sequencing information within the framework of the ITPGRFA are reigniting tensions between “developing” and “developed” countries. The latter are imposing guidelines that weaken the claims of the other side and strengthen their control over plant genetic resources. Their weapon? Maintaining “free access” to digital sequencing information and parallel and optional benefit sharing, as agreed by the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Having described the complexity of the question of the origin of Sars-Cov2, the main players and their research (GOF, etc.), then the history of the pandemic (part 1 and part 2), we can give the opinions of the various parties, without any of them being totally convincing.

After describing the main issues and key players (part 1)i, we will now trace the prehistory of Covid-19, followed by its history, which has received more media coverage.