Genetically modified food products: development of safety assessment system in Russia

The paper gives an overview of basic approaches to assessing safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that are used in food products manufacturing. It contains data on overall volumes of GMOs production in the world and outlines basic trends in development of GMOs safety assessment in the Russian Federation. In Russia a system for GMOs safety assessment was first created on the basis of domestic experience accumulated via medical and biological research on protein products of microbiological synthesis taking into account all the approaches that existed in the world. A combined algorithm was substantiated; the algorithm includes examinations of GMOs properties and obligatory examinations in vivo: toxicological ones performed via a chronic experiment on rats; allergic ones performed via a modeling experiment on rats; immunologic and genotoxic ones performed via experiments on mice. The system was developed further as, first of all, there was a search for biomarkers that allow to make toxicological research more sensitive; secondly, reproductive functions and offspring development were studied...