Biotech Updates

U.S. FDA Approves China's GE Rice

January 24, 2018

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Huahui-1, a genetically engineered rice variety developed by Huazhong Agricultural University.

"Based on the safety and nutritional assessment Huazhong has conducted, it is our understanding that Huazhong has concluded that human and animal foods from Huahui No.1 rice grain are not materially different in composition, safety, and other relevant parameters from rice-derived human and animal food currently on the market, and that genetically engineered Huahui No.1 rice grain does not raise issues that would require premarket review or approval by FDA," said Dennis Keefe, director of the FDA's Office of Food Additive Safety in his approval letter.

Huahui-1 is genetically engineered to express the insecticidal protein Cry1Ab/Cry1A to confer resistance to lepidopteran insect pests. Read the approval letter in the U.S. FDA website.