The Institute for Health & Consumer Protection (IHCP) is one of the seven scientific institutes of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. It is located in Ispra, Northern Italy and focuses on generic problems linked to biotechnology, chemicals assessment, nano-biotechnology, environmental exposure sto stressors, food contact materials, authentication of consumer food products, and alternative methods to animal testing.
The Unit of Biotechnology and Genetically Modified Organisms (BGMOs) is dedicated to GMO analysis and detection with the European Network of GMO Laboratories (
ENGL). BGMOs hosts the two Community Reference Laboratories (
CRL) for the validation of GMO detection methods and for the monitoring of the GM-food/feed market with the National Reference Laboratories. The BGMOs scope is the genetic traceability of genetically modified organisms (GMO) food and feed, the development and validation of analytical methods for GMO detection, genomic mapping of genetic modification in commercial crops, the harmonisation, standardisation and quality management in analytical methodology. The
Central Core Sequence Information system (CCSIS) hosts DNA sequences under regulatory, CRL or
R&D status, encoded under NCBI formats. (
see also BGMOs ) (Last update 15/11/2007)
