News

The School of Engineering is supporting the international workshop “Food Safety Assessment of Genetically Modified Organisms”

April 2, 2012
The Academic Coordination Office for Biotechnology at the School of Engineering supported the organization of the international workshop "Food Safety Assessment of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)," which took place on April 16 and 17, 2012, at the Center for Social Security, Health, and Administration Studies of the Social Security Bank. It was organized by the International Food Biotechnology Committee (IFBIC) of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), ILSI Argentina, and the Risk Management Commission of Uruguay (CGR). As part of this workshop, on Tuesday, April 17, practical activities took place in one of the faculty’s computer labs led by Dr. William Price, PhD in Animal Nutrition and Statistics from Purdue University and professor of Crop Sciences at the University of Georgia, and Dr. William Ridley, who holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Minnesota and serves as a consultant and adjunct professor in the Department of Nutrition at Saint Louis University.

This workshop was aimed at scientists, evaluators, and professionals involved in GMO food safety from Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

Hands-on session at the university:

2:30 p.m. “Comprehensive food safety assessment: key studies, indicators, weight of evidence, compositional studies,” presented by Dr. Price.
3:30 p.m. “The ILSI Crop Composition Database: Background, Applications, Examples,” presented by Dr. Ridley.
4:30 p.m. Hands-on session on using the database, led by Dr. Ridley.
5:30 p.m. Discussion session and workshop closing.

Dr. Price was one of the U.S. representatives to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Working Group on Novel Foods and contributed to several Consensus Documents on Compositional Considerations for New Plant Varieties. He was a member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Biotechnology Policy Team for food and feed.

Dr. Ridley is a Certified Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology. He led the compositional analysis team for agro-biotechnology products at Monsanto, a company that provides products for agriculture. He directed the ILSI-IFBIC Working Group that developed the first versions of the ILSI Crop Composition Database. He has published numerous scientific papers and book chapters on crop composition, comparative studies of conventional and biotech crops, and the metabolism of agricultural chemicals.