How Can Scientist Patent Life?

There were many researchers involved in learning about cells and their basic function. In order to do this, tissue samples were taken from patients to examine. However, in the past there weren’t many laws regarding informed consent and patient confidentiality. In my opinion, the Gold/Moore case is different than what Dr. Gey did with Henrietta Lack’s cells. Gold and Gey had very different incentives. Dr. Gey was a tissue researcher whose aim was to create an immortal line of human cells to be used for medical research. Gey had spent 30 years prior to the discovery of Henrietta’s immortal cells, working to grow malignant cells outside of the human body. His goal was to find the cause and cure of cancer.

John Moore lost the lawsuit against David Golde, according to the judge he had no right “to ownership interest in the patent - he was not one of the inventors. Nor, it concluded, could a patient exercise property rights over discarded body tissues.” (von der Ropp & Taubman, 2006). The loss of the lawsuit by Moore caused a lot of media attention and again a big ethical discussion in science. As previously said, this story also highlighted the importance of ethical and ownership laws in medical research.

4. John Moore filed a lawsuit against UCLA researcher David Golde in 1984 because Golde had devoted much of the seven years after taking Moore’s spleen out during surgery to develope and marketing cell line called Mo. Moore had no idea that the spleen that was taken out of him even years ago was making a profit without his knowledge. Gold also filed for a patent on Moore’s cells (and several extremely valuable proteins those cells produces), without explaining to Moore his plan. Golde hadn’t yet sold the rights to the patent, but according to the lawsuit that Moore filed, Golde entered into agreements with a biotech company that gave him stocks and financing worth more than $3-5 million to “commercially develop” and “scientifically investigate” the Mo cell line. The value estimated to be $3 billion Another result was that nothing was considered patentable until a few years before Moore’s lawsuit (in 1980) when the Supreme Court ruled on the case of Ananda Mohan

In “Patenting Life,” Michael Crichton argues that the government is mishandling the patenting office with the awarding of patents for human genes. Gene patenting is blocking the advancement of modern medicine and could be costing many patients their lives. The hold on research results in the discovery of fewer cures for modern diseases.

Cell larceny, theft by non-disclosure. Doctors, often without patient knowledge, use patient’s cells to advance scientific studies and make profit. Doctors accumulate enormous profit stealing cells. Cases such as Henrietta Lacks and John Moore highlight the injustices caused by intentional misuse of cells. In contrast, Ted Slavin’s case exemplifies the beneficial outcome that is achieved when a patient and doctor work together to achieve a common goal. Doctors should be required to notify and obtain permission to use patient samples for research other than its original purpose, and the patient or their family should have control over who uses the samples to ensure proper usage and benefits of all involved parties.

After undergoing removal of his spleen as treatment for his cancer under Dr. Golde’s recommendation, Moore continued to return for what he was told were follow-up exams. Moore eventually found out that Dr. Golde had used his cells to patent a cell line, so Moore filed suit against him for the profits. As the book tells, after numerous previous trials, the Supreme Court of California ruled against Moore in what would become the “definitive statement on this issue: When tissues are removed from your body, with or without your consent, any claim you might have had to owning them vanishes. When you leave tissue in a doctor’s office or lab, you abandon them as waste, and anyone can take your garbage and cell it.” This meant that Moore no right to any profit made off of his own cells.

Much like Henrietta, Moore’s doctor extracted his cancerous cells with intent to start a cell line and named it MO, instead of using Moore’s actual identity. The article “Tissue Rights and Ownership: Is a Cell a Research Tool or a Person?” states that Moore’s doctor advised that “his continued health depended upon such testing but did not reveal that he was keeping the samples to aid his research.” Keeping Moore oblivious to the research kept his identity unknown. It also meant that the money from MO’s three-billion-dollar market value went to a researcher like Moore’s doctor instead of Moore

OWNERSHIP OF CELLS RAISES STICKY ISSUES … WHO SHOULD HAVE RIGHTS TO A PATIENT’S CELLS? … WHO TOLD YOU YOU COULD SELL MY SPLEEN? (Skloot, Rebecca Scientists, lawyers, ethicists, and policymakers debated the issues: some called for legislation that would make it illegal for doctors to take patients’ cells or commercialize them without consent and the disclosure of potential profits; others argued that doing so would create a logistical nightmare that would put an end to medical progress.(Skloot, Rebecca (2010-01-28). The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (p. 204). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle

There has been a big controversy pertaining to gene patenting ever since the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) began issuing them. While some, like the author of the article in the New York Times, “Patenting Life” Michael Crichton, see gene patents as giving up ownership of one's own ties to “all life on earth” (441) and recognize the disadvantages and restrictions put forth on medical advancement and innovation; others, like economist John E. Calfee author of “Decoding the Use of Gene Patents” on the American Enterprise Institute’s online magazine, see the benefits of high prices on test and research studies. Crichton sees gene patents as unnatural, costly and restrictive; Calfee, on the other hand sees it as “a power

Myriad Genetics is a biotech company that has a patent on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which exist in all humans. I have no problem with that. Myriad Genetics has done what they reasonably had to in order to compete with other companies. Companies should be able to hold patents on genes because it will fuel the growth of scientific research.

Of course when they reviewed the case, the supreme court found out that John Moore had signed an informed consent stating “I (do, do/not) voluntarily grant to the University of California all rights/ I, may have in any cell line or potential product which might be developed from the blood and/or bone marrow obtained from me” (McLellan, D. 2001). This showed that Moore had agreed to the research project by signing this informed consent, and he lost the case. This case made it clear that once the tissue has left a person’s body, regardless of whether a consent is provided, it’s no longer owned by that person, and therefore that person cannot control its fate. This results in people having no claim to the profits that come from the use of their tissue.

Finally in 1990, in Moore v. Regents of the University of California, the California Supreme Court held that “human cell lines are patentable because long-term adaptation and growth of human tissue and cells in a culture is difficult – often considered an art…. It is this inventive effort that patent law rewards, not the discovery of naturally occurring raw materials.” The cells, taken from Mr. Moore and later used for research had to be “manipulated by man” so they could be useful research tools. The California Supreme Court’s holding, rejected Moore’s allegations that he owned the cell line and the products derived from it were inconsistent with the patent, which constitutes an authoritative determination that the cell line is the product

The patenting issue gained some attention when President Bill Clinton and Prime Minster Tony Blair jointly called for the release of raw genetic data into the public domain (CQ 405). I will argue in this paper that the aggressive competition among biotechnology firms to patent genes is

Gene technology relates to gene expression, genetic variation, and modifying genes to new hosts. Scientists currently use gene technology to move genes to different species and even create new ones. They do this by changing DNA structure of an organism. Gene technology is used to produce vaccines, immune-therapy drugs and insulin. It has recently been applied to plants to create genetically modified foods.

Exploration into the function of each gene discovered will continue well into the 21st century. The knowledge gained from this will lead us to better understand the cause of genetically related diseases. Having the ability to recognize the causation of a disease will shift technology from trial and error treatments to specific drugs designed to treat the gene sequence and protein structure. This is called gene therapy and is the most exciting aspect of the HGP. It gives the