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What are the links between new techniques of genetic modification, digitization of genetic sequences information and patents? Inf’OGM publishes here an analysis presented in June 2024 at a regional workshop organized by the African Center for Biodiversity, in Durban (South Africa). It was written by Guy Kastler, representative of the international farmers’ organization La Via Campesina at various ITPGRFA and CBD meetings. 

In April 2024, Inf’OGM reported on its interview with a Dutch seed company feeling threatened by KWS patents. This is not an isolated case since De Bolster, another Dutch seed company, has had to apply constant legal vigilance for several years to prevent its varietal varieties from being covered by an ever-increasing number of patent rights, otherwise its survival would be jeopardized. Frans Carree, Director of De Bolster’s Variety Development Department, answered our questions.

Between 1 January 2021 and the present day, the European Union has had to deal with almost fifty cases of the illegal presence of GMOs on its territory. Most of the cases reported by the national authorities involve GMO plants originating in Asian countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, but also in other countries such as Ukraine, the United States and, more surprisingly, France… GMO micro-organisms have also been detected in batches of food additives used in human and animal nutrition.

In Spain, the public agronomy institute Irta regularly carries out evaluations of several varieties of rapeseed. Recently, they introduced into their evaluation some Clearfield rapeseed varieties, herbicide tolerant varieties modified via in vitro mutagenesis. Result: these GMOs, grown commercially in Europe outside the legal framework, do not have better yields than their conventional counterparts.

For the past fifteen years, governments have been discussing “synthetic biology” on an international level. If to date, an “operational” definition exists, the outlines of this field remain hard to draw. Are talks of “synthetic biology” simply a change of semantics, or a genuinely new frontier of the biotechnology field? For the moment, examples of organisms or molecules obtained by synthetic biology are accumulating: unnatural proteins, GMO plants, GMO bacteria, recreated viruses, modification of living organisms directly in the environment, GMO insects, xenobacteria…

In a recent article, researchers detail several ongoing projects for the genetic modification of viruses. Some of these could be deliberately released into the environment. On February 7, 2024, the European Parliament asked the European Commission to study the potential deregulation of these GMO viruses. A general overview of those projects seems therefore necessary.

In January 2024, two Danish industrial giants of the microorganisms merged and Novonesis was born. This company sells “biosolutions” for all industrial and agricultural areas. “Bio” for biotechnological… and not biological, as it prefers to emphasize. This company uses microorganisms, often genetically modified, to make them produce enzymes.

Toulouse-based Micropep Technologies has just had one of its fungicidal micropeptides approved in the United States. The technology, developed and patented by this CNRS spin-off, is aiming for European approval by 2030. However, these micropeptides are raising questions about their potential impact on ecosystems.

During the parliamentary work on the proposal for a European regulation on plant reproductive material, known as the “seeds regulation”, a question arose: should so-called “non-targeted mutagenesis” be considered as an “essentially biological process”? As these processes are excluded from patentability, the question may seem important. But such a decision would not be without consequences for the regulation of GMOs.