Onderhoud van de Europese EUginius GMO database

The Government is responsible for the enforcement of EU legislation in the field of GMOs. The EUginius database supports the enforcement of European GMO regulations, where the focus is on non-authorised GMOs worldwide not yet on safety for humans, animals and the environment are reviewed.

Aim of this project is to maintain the European COM-database EUginius. This database is an easy-to-use, web-based European database for the detection and the detection of unauthorised GMOs (within Europe) not reviewed on safety for humans, animals and the environment.

The contents of the database should be reviewed regularly and supplemented in response to new data on (non-admitted) GMOs, admission or withdrawal of GMOs, new security related data and new methods and/or DNA sequences. To facilitate cooperation with external parties, such as Biosafety Clearing House (BCH, set up for the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety) and Joint Research Centre (JRC, The European Commission's in-house science service) terms and concepts used are standardized as much as possible. Two thesauri have been developed, one for genetic elements and one for traits that are used in the EUginius database but also by partners. At the same time the project members tried to involve more Member States in EUginius and establish links with other databases to make updating as cost effective as possible.

The database contains functionality that allows the user to use the information from EUginius in various ways. Extensive search functions, an analysis module for evaluating screening results and a BLAST module are part of EUginius.

This project is carried out together with BVL (Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety in Berlin, co-developer and co-financing) with the support of a software company (OPITZ) acquired through an open tender procedure. The database is important for maintaining the European GMO regulations, for RIKILT (national reference laboratory for GMO methods), for the NVWA and other (European) users of the database.