Achievement

Trainees in the research practicum traveled to Montreal, Canada to collaborate with our IGERT partners at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD asked trainees to review risk assessment (RA) frameworks currently used by different countries for living modified organisms (LMOs). The team used economic, cultural and biological criteria to evaluate how robust the RA process was for each country. The resulting document "Summary and Comparative Analysis of Nine National Approaches to Ecological Risk Assessment of Living Modified Organisms in the Context of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, Annex III" will be used by the CBD to help other countries develop their own RA frameworks for LMOs. Trainee Thelma Heidel will present a poster describing the results at the IGERT PI meeting in Washington, D.C. May 24, 2010 and trainee David Smith will present the results at the Tribal Renewable Energy Research Workshop at the University of Washington May 11, 2010.