A GMO is an organism, with the exception of humans, whose hereditary information stored in DNA has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. It was done in a different way than the normal reproduction and combination of the aptitudes of the parent pair. These are, for example, recombinant nucleic acid techniques creating new combinations of hereditary material by inserting a section of nucleic acid prepared in any way outside the organism into any virus, bacterial plasmid or other vector system and its subsequent incorporation into the organism of the recipient, in which it does not normally occur, but in which it is capable of further reproduction, techniques introducing hereditary material prepared in any way outside the organism directly into the organism of the recipient, including microinjections, macroinjections, biolistic methods, microencapsulation and artificial chromosomes or cell fusion techniques, including protoplast fusion, or cell hybridization, in which the fusion of two or more cells creates viable cells with a new combination of genetic material, by methods or means that do not occur naturally. Plants, animals and microorganisms can be genetically modified.
The Inspectorate does not deal with the inspection of non-living or non-reproducing GMOs, i.e. GM grains after processing by grinding, extraction, etc. (corn, soya, rapeseed – products from them: e.g. corn, soya flour, semolina, rapeseed, soya extracted scraps, oils).
Also see Section 1, Paragraph 2 of Act no. 78/2004 Coll., as amended - i.e. which organisms are not covered by this law.