The most recent committee convened to study biotechnology was formed this year at the behest of the White House. The group was asked to predict what new technologies might arise over the next 15 years and advise the government on how to oversee them. The regulation for the industry was last updated in 1992, years before the first approval of genetically engineered seeds, which are now widely used by farmers.

Like the 200 or so other reports published by the National Academies each year, the biotechnology report is undergoing peer review, the quality-control process regularly used by academic journals.

The report could have broad implications for the industry. Big food companies like Coca-Cola and Archer Daniels Midland, for instance, have invested in synthetic biology, a term used for the more sophisticated genetic engineering now coming into use that was the panel’s area of study. Food companies are exploring its use in creating flavorings and sweeteners.

When the National Academies announced the committee this year, they disclosed that two of the group’s 13 scientists had ties to the biotech industry that violated the organization’s conflict-of-interest policy. Such disclosures are rare for the academies, said William Kearney, a spokesman for the organization, but scientists with conflicts are sometimes allowed to work on a committee when the academies think the scientist has a specialty or knowledge that cannot be found elsewhere.

Mr. Kearney would not, however, provide data on how frequently the academies have to disclose such conflicts, saying only that they are “rare.”

The two scientists with conflicts are Dr. Steven Evans, a scientist at Dow AgroSciences, a major biotechnology company, and Jeffrey Wolt, a professor at Iowa State University, who the academies said has investments in a company that could benefit from the study’s results. The academies noted their conflicts when the panel members were announced.