Preparing specialists to evaluate biological risks

Research on transgenic
cultivations has increased in the
last few years. Technical progress
in different areas has produced
a greater efficacy of these
biotechnological applications as
well as in a reduction in costs.

Accompanying this progress is the necessity to evaluate the potential risks involved in the liberation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the environment and to have protocols for their appropriate management and control, especially with respect to origin centers and high diversity sites of cultivated species. However, not enough professionals are prepared in a multidisciplinary perspective to deal with the themes related to biological risk evaluation and management.

In response to this necessity, the faculty of Forestry Sciences, the university’s Biotechnology Center, and the United Nationals Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) inaugurated, in 2001, a Biosecurity Diploma Program, the only academic program in the world that provides specialization in this area.

This Diploma Program functions with a long-distance education platform and is oriented to professionals who are responsible for evaluating biological risks in the fields of research, government, and industry, as well as those related with public policy design or the legal and ethical aspects of biotechnology.

Achievements

In one year –with long-distance work and two in-class modulesthe program prepares professionals to formulate GMO liberation protocols. It also allows the students to evaluate and administrate the risks associated with GMOs; manage and analyze the exponential growth of the relevant scientific information, and deal with issues related to science public policy, government, industry, and civil society.

The material is structured around 7 thematic modules: Methodologies for testing and managing biological risk; Vegetal biotechnology and its environmental impacts; Food security; Industrial and environmental applications of GMOs; Perception and
communication of risk; Regulatory Systems (national and international norms; and Legal Aspects and Bioethics.

World-renown specialists form part of the academic staff of this diploma program. The team is integrated by Klauss Amman, University of Berne (Switzerland), Moisés Burachick, Conabia (Argentina), Ananda Chakrabarty, University of Illinois (United States), Jonathan Gressel, Weizmann Institute (Israel), Graham Head, Monsanto (United States), and Roger Hull, John Innes Centre (United Kingdom); as well as George Tzotzos, UNIDO (Austria) and Sofía Valenzuela, Universidad de Concepción, program coordinators.

In its first version, the Diploma Program formed 11 specialists. The second version, functioning since July, reflects the growing interest in this area: the program received 100 applications from developed and developing countries. The present version is presently training 25 professionals from Nigeria, Kenya, Lithuania, Slovakia, Austria, United States, Mexico, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala and Chile, who attend the Global Biotechnology Forum, which coincides with the development of the second module.

This specialization has awoken interest in the Ministry of Economy and the National Environmental Corporation (CONAMA), which are studying, with the Program organizers, ways in which to train some of their functionaries.

The quality and pertinence of the Diploma Program is appreciated by the Global Environmental Fund (GEF), whose directors are interested in supporting the training, in the third version of this program, of one third of the individuals are responsible for the regulatory frameworks in Latin American countries.

On the other hand, UNIDO is studying the possibility of replicating this experience in Africa and Asia to facilitate the access of this training to a greater number of professionals.

Meanwhile, the University is evaluating the proposal to transform the program into a Master’s Degree adding to the actual program, modules on Biodiversity and Intellectual Property.