APHIS Issues New Guidance for Certain Genetic Modifications in Plants

On January 19, USDA APHIS Biotechnology Regulatory Service (BRS) released Guidance for Preparing Proposals to Exempt Plants with Additional Modification. This guidance is intended to support developers that may seek exemption of plants with additional genetic modifications that could have occurred through conventional breeding, beyond the current three categories specified in the 2020 final rule, Movement of Certain Genetically Engineered Organisms. The three current exemptions include: changes resulting from cellular repair of a targeted DNA break; targeted single base-pair substitutions; and changes in DNA sequence to reproduce an allele introduction of a gene known to occur in the plant’s gene pool. The guidance can be viewed here.