A Practical Guide to Containment - Greenhouse Research with Transgenic Plants and Animals

Information Systems for Biotechnology

A Practical Guide to Containment
Greenhouse Research with Transgenic Plants and Microbes

Information about handling transgenic plants in greenhouses is relatively sparse. Appendix P of the NIH Guidelines specifies facilities and practices for meeting containment standards appropriate for each of four biosafety levels, but there presently is no single source of practical guidance on managing greenhouses containing GMOs, nor on the requirements for building or renovating plant growth facilities to make them suitable for containing transgenic plants and associated organisms.

This 60-page Guide is intended as a simple and convenient reference on appropriate biosafety and containment levels for GMO research conducted in greenhouses. It will help clarify what level of containment is needed and what measures are sufficient to achieve the various biosafety levels. This Guide was written so that anyone who works in a greenhouse that houses transgenic materials will be better informed about the purpose of containment, the variety of methods used to achieve it, and the facilities and practices that satisfy the requirements of established guidelines and regulations. It is intended as guidance and should not be considered an authoritative source.

We'd like your comments on the manual—additions, deletions, or corrections. Please email us at isb@vt.edu, we'd like your opinion.

Greenhouse manual in Web Version

Greenhouse manual in Adobe Acrobat .pdf format (79 total pages; 747 Kb)
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