Glossary of Terms
Facts and Terms from "Putting GM Technologies to Work: Public Research Pipelines in Selected African Countries," African Journal of Biotechnology, November 2004, by Idah Sithole-Niang, Professor, University of Zimbabwe;
Joel I. Cohen, IFPRI Senior Research Fellow; and Patricia Zambrano, IFPRI Research Analyst (unless other sources cited)
- Biosafety: The goal of ensuring that the development and use of transgenic plants and other organisms do not negatively affect plant, animal or human health, or the environment.
- Biotechnology: The industrial use of living organisms or biological techniques developed through basic research.
- Commercial Release: The last regulatory stage in which products are marketed to farmers through private or publicly owned seed companies or other institutional mechanisms.
- Confined Field Trial Regulatory Stage: Regulatory stage that follows the lab/greenhouse stage in which genetic transformation events express stable traits in small-scale, single or multi-location confined trials.
- Foreign Genetic Materials: Genetic materials derived from foreign materials (either private or public).
- Genetic Modification (Transformation Event): The stable transformation-the incorporation of foreign DNA into a living plant cell--undertaken by a single institute among the participating countries, thereby providing a unique crop-and-trait combination.
- Genetic Resources: Landraces, varieties, and finished lines produced or derived from developing countries.
- Lab/Greenhouse: Initial regulatory stage in which genetic transformation events produce stable transgenic plants derived from multiple generations at the laboratory/greenhouse/glasshouse stage.
- Local Genetic Materials: Genetic materials derived from local materials (either private or public, or both).
- Phenotype: The outward, physical manifestation of the organism. In this study, eight phenotypic categories were used: agronomic properties, bacterial resistance, fungal resistance, herbicide tolerance, insect resistance, product quality, virus resistance, and other.
- Private Genetic Materials: Genetic materials from companies as well as commodity organizations operating for and within specific developing countries.
- Public Genetic Materials: Genetic materials from any public institution.
- Scale-up Regulatory Stage: The regulatory stage that follows the confined field trial stage in which transgenic plants advance into larger, pre-commercial trials.