MICROBES-4-CLIMATE hosted the Bioethics and Regulatory Workshops in Vienna, Austria, from 25-27 November 2024. The meeting was attended by key stakeholders from EU projects, Culture collections, Biobanks and Universities.

The first part of the workshop covered ethical aspects and included Impulse talks from Lene Lange (LL-Bioeconomy) who spoke about bioeconomy and impacting ethical considerations and Stephanie Laurel Schnorr (University of Vienna) who gave a perspective considering the human microbiome. This was followed by discussion sessions led by Tanja Kostic (AIT) which considered the current ethical practices in research projects, biobanks and culture collections, followed by a gap analysis. The final part of the first session then began to consider how to address the gaps identified and to involved stakeholders. The second part of the workshop considered the legal and regulatory landscape and how it impacts culture collections, biobanks and the potential for microbial interventions to mitigate climate change. Impulse speakers included Amber Sholtz (DSMZ) who summarised the recent impacts of the COP decision on Digital Sequence Information, Djamila Djeddour (CABI) gave a real use case example of how an international organisation negotiates the regulatory landscape ensuring compliance, Anthony Kermode (CABI) spoke on best practice and Ursula Hunger (Austrian Patent Office). Cornelia Stumptner (BBMRI MUG) also provided a helpful summary of progress with developing standards for microbiome biobanking, made through the sister EU Microbe Project.

Célia Soares (University of Minho) and Matthew Ryan (CABI) then led two sessions on 1) Best Practice, Biosecurity and Patents, and 2) Nagoya, ABS Challenges and Environmental regulation respectively. As with the ethical section of the workshop, notable gaps were identified and discussion had on how we might fill them.

The WP6 Task leaders and Workshop facilitators are now reviewing the outputs of the workshop, with key outputs to be disseminated to the wider project and scientific / stakeholder community during the first part of 2025.

Useful links:

Find the Workshop Agenda here.

https://microbes4climate.eu/2024/07/10/save-the-date-bioethics-and-regulatory-workshops/