Defining biotechnology - carefully

Henry Miller's opinion piece, Biotech's defining moments [1], in the February issue of Trends in Biotechnology, raises the important problem of how to define biotechnology and some ofthe problems that definitional issues have created, in his opinion, for regulation. He then turns to the report GEeD Biotechnology Statistics 2006 (http://www.oecd.org! dataoeccl/51159/36760212.pdf), which he cites as an 'egregious and recent example of definitional dysfunction' that partly uses a broad definition of biotechnology that would 'yield worthless results'. He concludes that 'the data in the OECD report are garbage'. Being responsible for the report, we are bemused by Miller's scathing review. The irony is that we share his concerns over the need to carefully define biotechnology - which is precisely what the report does.