International scientific-practical conference "Molecular diagnostics" is one of the most significant events in the post-Soviet space, devoted to the achievements of molecular biological technologies in various fields of food industry, agriculture, medicine, genetics, etc., as well as prospects for application of these technologies in various fields. This year the conference was attended by over 500 professionals, including representatives from state institutions and students of the leading universities and academies, employees of the best research institutes in the field of biotechnology from different countries – Russia, Belarus, Armenia, great Britain, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Latvia, USA, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Estonia, Japan and others.

At the conference were presented reports and oral presentations on the following topics: molecular techniques in the diagnosis of infectious diseases and biosecurity, the prospects of the use of methods of massive parallel sequencing technology (NGS) in clinical practice, bioinformatics processing of sequencing data of genomes, new directions of molecular biology and genetic engineering in the diagnosis, pharmacogenetics, food safety and animal feed.

During the round table "Health and safety nutrition: modern aspects of laboratory diagnosis" were discussed issues of control of antibiotic resistance, the issues of food safety. Special interest reports "the Safety of genetically modified food products and risk analysis. The Russian approach" and "Problems of detection and identification of GMOs and their treatment in the Republic of Belarus". The authors noted that the methodological base of many of the institutions are not keeping pace with the development of biotechnology, and in connection with the emergence of new lines of GMO of plant origin have difficulties with their detection and identification due to the lack of commercially available test systems. Also, the reports raised the issue of the safety assessment of new GMOs for registering and authorizing the use in food.

Intensive development of genetic engineering has led to the emergence of biotech crops second generation DNA which contains regulatory sequences (identified as GMOs), or contains fundamentally new sequences, identification of which requires a separate long-term studies. Such GM crops have the potential to be on the market and remain unidentified in the framework of routine control over the circulation of GMOs.