History

The ZKBS was launched in February 1978 with the “Directives on protection against damage from nucleic acids which have been recombined in vitro”. At that time, the ZKBS consisted of twelve members:

• 4 experts in the field of recombinant nucleic acids
• 4 experts with particular experience in conducting research in microbiology, cell biology, hygiene and ecology
• 4 people from the social areas of trade unions, industry, occupational safety and research-promoting organizations.

The ZKBS held a total of only 26 meetings between 1981 and 1988, which is about half as often as it does today. The reason for this was a procedure that deviated from the current procedure: For example, decisions or statements for projects with low security levels were made by two ZKBS members alone, provided that these two could agree.

Before the GenTG was enacted, the ZKBS not only had an advisory role, but was also partially authorized to make decisions. The committee had to check certain operations, such as self-cloning experiments, not only with regard to its security, but also had to approve it.

The ZKBS meeting on June 20, 1990 was undoubtedly a historical high point. The last ZKBS meeting before the GenTG came into force took place on this day. Since many applicants still wanted to use the old procedural rules, numerous applications were received in a very short time, so that the ZKBS had over 100 applications to decide on that day and met until after midnight.

With the enactment of the GenTG in 1990, the procedures were changed as they are still known today. The number of ZKBS members was also increased to 15, mainly due to the increased workload (1 expert from the new area of safety technology, another expert from the area of ecology and an competent person from the area of environmental protection) - all members also became deputy members intended.

From then on, the ZKBS no longer had decision-making powers. Final binding decisions have been made by the responsible state or federal authorities. In the meantime, it has also been clarified by the administrative court that the authorities must take the ZKBS's opinions into account, but are not bound by them.

From 1990 the office of the ZKBS was located at the Federal Health Office and later at the Robert Koch Institute.

In 2002, the second GenTG Amendment Act increased the number of competent members, so that since then a member from the field of consumer protection has also belonged to the ZKBS. This complied with the factual relation of genetic engineering to food production and the associated consumer protection.

In addition, the administrative office of the ZKBS has been part of the then newly founded Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) since 2004.

Finally, in 2008 the ZKBS received two additional experts from the fields of plant protection and toxicology as well as two competent members from the fields of agriculture and nature conservation. Since then, nothing has changed in the composition of the specialist areas.