Dr. Michael F. Eckerstorfer works as a Senior Scientific Officer in the Department of Land use and Biosafety at Umweltbundesamt Wien (Environment Agency Austria), Vienna, Austria. He completed his Ph.D. studies in Molecular Genetics from the University of Vienna. His work focuses on the environmental risk assessment and monitoring of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and issues related to the risk management of biotechnology applications involving the environmental release of GMOs. He serves as a peer reviewer for several scientific journals and has served as guest editor for special issues of Plants and Frontiers in Genome Editing.
Dr. Andreas Heissenberger is the Unit Head of the Team “Landuse
and Biosafety” at the Umweltbundesamt—Environment Agency Austria. He is an
ecologist and biochemist by training and has worked in the field of detection,
risk assessment, and monitoring of GMOs since 1996. He has carried out
or coordinated studies regarding the monitoring and risk assessment of
GMOs and has been responsible for several capacity-building projects dealing with the implementation of international and
EU legislation, enforcement, detection, and risk assessment of GMOs, mainly
in Asia and accession countries to the European Union. His responsibilities
include scientific support to
the competent authorities of Austria and the European Parliament and the European Commission. He is a member of the Compliance Committee of the UN Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.
