Environmental risk assessment of replication competent viral vectors applied in clinical trials: potential effects of inserted sequences.

Risk assessments of clinical applications involving genetically modified viral vectors are carried out according to general principles that are implemented in many national and regional legislations, e.g., in Directive 2001/18/EC of the European Union.

Cultivated microalgae spills: hard to predict/easier to mitigate risks.

Cultivating algae on a large scale will inevitably lead to spills into natural ecosystems. Most risk analyses have dealt only with transgenic algae, without considering the risks of cultivating the corresponding non-transgenic wild type species. This is despite the long-studied 'paradox of the plankton', which describes the unsuitability of laboratory experimentation or modeling to predict the outcome of introducing non-native algae into a new ecosystem.