AMIGA partners in Madrid for the third project meeting

On the 22nd – 23rd of October, the AMIGA consortium gathered in Madrid for the joint management board and technical meeting after the kick off meeting that took place in December 2011 in Matera at ENEA’s premises. This meeting was hosted by Dr Cristina Chueca from INIA (The National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology and agrifood research in Spain).

After almost one year since the beginning of AMIGA and two other meetings in Italy and Denmark, the Management Board Members met to discuss about financial and practical issues and then dedicated one full day to deal with specific project activities (analysis, laboratory and field trials) and the achieved first results.

During the first day the Management Board, members focused on the management issues and communication policies within the project. The second day was dedicated to a short presentation provided by each work package leader, each of which gave updates to the others about developments and first challenges to tackle. The meeting ended with a brief discussion on the next planned activities and further steps in the partners’ collaboration. In parallel, some WP leader met separately to coordinate the activities within their own working group.

The activities are developing positively and the first AMIGA results can be found in the recent publication on the analysis of environmental risk assessments of genetically modified crops issues. These preliminary results are now available and collected in “Effects of multiple Bt proteins and GNA lectin on in vitro-reared honey bee larvae”. This first paper was produced within the project by the AMIGA partner University of Wurzburg, Germany, and published on Apidologie (2012) by DIB and Springer-Verlag. The group of researchers analysed for the first time the combined effects of three Bt proteins conferring insect resistances, and a CP4-protein conferring an herbicide resistance as simultaneously expressed in one GM maize.

The paper has been produced by the following authors: Harmen P. HENDRIKSMA, Stephan HÄRTEL (Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocentre, University of Würzburg, Germany), Dirk BABENDREIER (CABI-Europe Switzerland) Werner von der OHE (Institut für Bienenkunde – LAVES, Germany), Ingolf STEFFAN-DEWENTER (Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocentre, University of Würzburg, Germany). The study was also funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung BMBF).

Countries

Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom