Thirty hours of flight time separate Tromsø in Norway and Christchurch in New Zealand. But researchers in the two cities have unearthed a common interest — gene flow — that springs from their respective positions as gateways to pristine polar regions. And last week, at the first meeting of parties to the biosafety protocol (see Nature 428, 6; 2004), they agreed to team up to help other nations assess the risks of genetically modified organisms.

The Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology (GenØk), based at the University of Tromsø, and the New Zealand Institute of Gene Ecology at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, signed an agreement with the United Nations Environment Programme to help poor countries build the infrastructure needed to test genetically modified organisms against environmental safety standards.

The two institutes have pioneered the new and contentious field of gene ecology, a discipline that includes the study of how consumption of transgenic foods affects the genes and long-term health of animals. “We start out by looking for differences where other groups assume everything will be the same,” says Terje Traavik, scientific director of GenØk. The subdiscipline combines genetics, biochemistry, ecology and social analysis of related issues, he says.

The collaborators have received 5 million kroner (US$700,000) for the project's first year from the Norwegian government, and hope this will be renewed annually.