by Sandra Sulzer | Jul 2, 2022 | Commentary |
The Genome Defense by Jorge Contreras provides a road map for how to leverage creativity, ingenuity and hard work to advance civil rights. This nonfiction story covers the origins of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) unprecedented patent law case. Historically, patent attorneys and civil rights attorneys operated in non-intersecting legal fields, but when the human genome was mapped and individual genes were discovered, companies and universities began to patent specific sequences of human genes. However, patents only protect the owners of discoveries and inventions. No one can be issued a patent for something that occurs in nature. Genes themselves occur in nature: each of us has them in our bodies. And as the human genome was mapped, it was not just healthy genes that were mapped, but also variants that could indicate disease or potential disease. Among the most widely publicized were the BRCA genes, which could predict an increased likelihood of future ovarian and breast cancer. The BRCA genes, made famous by Angelina Jolie, were originally discovered by a collection of University researchers and scientists. However, patents for these genes were now owned by Myriad genetics. Myriad was not alone in owning patents on genes: this had become an accepted practice at the U.S. Patent Office. They used this patent to regulate the industry for BRCA testing, and to shut downother labs that used the gene sequence whether for research or to provide testing. If a woman wanted to know if she had a variation in her genes that could predispose her for breast or ovarian cancer, she would effectively need to get a test through Myriad....
