Sir

In your News item, “Transgenic salmon still out in the cold in the United States” (Nature 421, 304; 2003), you state that Aqua Bounty Farms is working with us “to perform an environmental-impact assessment, which it will use to support its application” to the US Food and Drug Administration for approval of its technology. Although we are discussing such work with Aqua Bounty, we have not yet signed a contract to do this research. More important, we understand that Aqua Bounty intends to submit our analysis as part of its application, but we do not know whether our results will support that application.

Our analysis will be a rigorous, objective, scientifically sound investigation, subject to standard legal separation between academic researchers and their funders. The work will be conducted in collaboration with a panel of scientific experts. Our results will not be shared with Aqua Bounty or regulatory agencies until submitted for publication in a scientific journal. Further, aware of the controversial nature of this issue and to inform the questions we ask and our analysis, our research will receive input from multiple funders with a range of perspectives on the topic of transgenic salmon.