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\n \nEnvironmental applications of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have received \nunprecedented inspection and evaluation. In recent decades, public valuation of the \nenvironment has increased, and public perceptions of the environmental impacts of \nagricultural technologies have changed. Agricultural technologies, which at one \ntime escaped broad public consideration, now receive intense public scrutiny because \nof their potential adverse environmental effects. For instance, pesticides, sub-soil \ndrainage, fertilizers, and the Green Revolution have been examined with increasing \nintensity, and GMOs are the most recent agricultural technology to attract public \ncriticism in their evolving attitudes toward the environment. However, the breadth \nof the ongoing public discourse concerning GMOs is unprecedented in scope and timing. \nThis is the first time that human health, environmental, and socio-economic \nconsiderations have been brought to bear in evaluating a technological innovation \nprior to commercialization. \nFor nearly all innovative biological technologies, thoughtful scientists have been \nacutely aware that application of these discoveries could have detrimental effects \non humans or the environment, and have called for careful application of these new \ntechnologies. In the 1960s and 1970s, molecular biologists were in the forefront of \nasking the pertinent safety questions in their field, and seeking answers to these \nquestions resulted in the NIH Guidelines for safe laboratory practice and safe cloning \nin Escherichia coli (Wright, 1994). Here improved knowledge made it possible to \nimplement safe laboratory practices, and thus to benefit from the many medical and \nfood processing innovations of genetic engineering. In the 1970s and 1980s, ecological \nscientists called for environmental safety evaluations for releases of GMOs into the \nenvironment (Sharples, 1983; Gillett et al., 1986; Tiedje et al., 1989). Improved \nunderstanding of GMOs intended for deliberate release plays a key role in making it \npossible to benefit more fully from GMOs, while mitigating or avoiding potential \nnegative effects. Science-based assessment of GMOs is universally recognized as the \nessential foundation of national and international evaluation of GMO-based innovation, \nand this is the basis of the enormous challenge to the scientific community involved.\nThis prospective, interdisciplinary feature of the GMO discussion makes research in \nthis area particularly interesting, but it has become increasingly difficult to follow \nnew developments across this broad and actively growing domain. Although researchers \nwill continue to publish in specialized journals, the principal objective of Environmental \nBiosafety Research (EBR) is to provide a common interdisciplinary ground for publication \nof results that are pertinent to the environmental safety and risk - in the broadest \nsense - of biotechnological innovations. This includes biological and socio-economic \nevaluations of environmental effects, and environmentally mediated effects on human health.\nOur hope is that results published in EBR will help provide answers to current and future \nquestions about the environmental effects of GMOs. Even when the current phase of debate \nhas reached some scientific consensus, there will be a need for continued focus on \nbiosafety research for at least two reasons. The currently available GMOs are modified \nfor relatively simple traits, both genetically and phenotypically. When far more complex \ntraits, such as resistance to salinity or drought, or modifications of entire metabolic \npathways, are ready for evaluation, the scientific biosafety issues will likely be \ncorrespondingly complex. Also, public involvement in the decision-making process for \ncommercial release of GMOs may deepen or spread to other environmental applications \nof biological technologies. This would raise new challenges to provide the solid \nscientific results necessary to satisfy the analysis called for by the public - \nand scientists as well - which we believe is a positive social good. EBR will be \nattentive to these possibilities, and expects to adapt to the shifting demands for \nscientific knowledge to support the decision making process regarding the use of any \nbiological discovery in uncontained environments. \nEBR begins its life as the official journal of a new learned society, the International \nSociety for Biosafety Research (ISBR). These twin projects were conceived during 2000 at \nthe 6th International Biosafety Symposium held in Saskatchewan, and their birth will be \nrecognized at the 7th International Biosafety Symposium at Beijing on October 11-16, 2002. \nThe linkage with the ISBR will guarantee that EBR will be able to publish forward-looking \nresearch with the necessary independence. Another essential element necessary for the \nsuccess of EBR is active participation by the scientific community. We look forward with \ngreat anticipation to our intertwined development with ISBR and will take great pleasure \nin meeting you, as a member of ISBR, as a reader of our articles, and most importantly as \nan author who believes that appropriate use of biological innovation requires the highest \nstandards of research.\n\n

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