Biosafety Biological Containments - Biological containments specifically aims at making such genetic changes in GMOs that reduce the hazard from these organisms when they are accidentally released from laboratories or accidentally transported by workers. Initially, NIH guidelines required the use of E. coli strains and vectors that were severely debilitated, viz., that could not infect humans, did not survive and spread outside the laboratory, and could not transfer the introduced foreign genes readily into other organisms in the environment.

Any combination of vector and host, which is to provide biological containment shall be chosen or constructed so that the following types of scapes' are minimized:

(i) survival of the vector in its host outside the laboratory, and

(ii) transmission of the vector from the propagation host to other non laboratory hosts.