The Sixth Plenary Session of the International Organization for Standardization's Biotechnology Comm

The reporter recently learned from the China Metrology Institute that the sixth general meeting of the International Organization for Standardization's Biotechnology Committee (ISO/TC 276) was held in  Beijing. More than 120 representatives from 29 member countries including China, the United States,  Britain, Germany, Japan and South Korea and ISO/TC 34, TC 212, TC 272, and TC 215 liaison organizations attended the meeting.

Biotechnology is the core of supporting the development of bio-industries. Modern biotechnology  such as genes, cells, proteins, micro-organisms and other technologies have been widely  used  in  many  fields such as industry, agriculture, food, medicine, environmental protection, information,  and  national security. The strong economic momentum of the economic development in the 21st century  requires the establishment of international and domestic biological standards.

During the plenary session, experts from China Metrology Institute participated in the 4 working group meetings of the committee, focusing on general and special requirements standards for animal and plant microbiology and other biological sample banks, standards for biological analysis methods such as nucleic acids/genes and cells, and production and transportation of cell therapy products. Requirements and other biological process standards were discussed in depth, and recommendations were made for the measurement requirements and analysis methods in each standard.

At present, China Metrology Institute has provided suggestions on traceability requirements and experimental design for the two international standards in the formulation of ISO/TC 276. In addition, the  standard proposal on the “General Definition and Requirements for Quality Control of Synthetic Genes” drafted by Wang Jing, researcher of the biometrics team of the hospital, and Fu Boqiang, associate researcher, has officially passed the pre-proposal vote of ISO/TC 276 member states. After further  revision and improvement, it became an international standard for guiding and regulating the quality control technology of gene synthesis and improving the quality of synthetic genes.

It is understood that ISO/TC 276 was established in 2013. The scope of work includes biological terms and definitions, biological samples and biological resources, biological analysis methods, biological  processes, biological data processing and biometrics. There are five working groups. Up to now,  ISO/TC 276 has published one international standard on cell counting, and it is developing 18 standard  items. There are 8 international standards proposed by China, involving animal and plant genetic  resources, microbial resources, stem cells, general requirements for gene sequencing, synthetic gene  quality  requirements, and general guidelines for the identification of cell lines.