The Good in Gene Patenting for BRCA1 and BRCA2 Essay

Gene sequencing is a method that helps us to read the genetic code and to compare normal genes with disease causing genes (Kratz, 2015). It is helpful to determine the precise order of the bases in a DNA strand, and mostly used for genetic variation or mutation that might lead to a development of a disease. This disease causing change can be a substitution, deletion or addition of a single base pair (National Human Genome Research Institute, 2014). Since the human genome project has completed its

Introduction Technology enriches our society by making widely available new and useful goods, services, and technical information . Clearly, as a society, we would want to encourage the development of technology so that we can reap the benefits they offer us. Innovators require an incentive to invent and share these technologies with the rest of society. This incentive is achieved by granting intellectual property rights (IPR) to inventors . More specifically, the incentive is usually achieved by

basis of genetic research and the idea of owning a gene were brought to light over 150 years ago when the Supreme Court ruled that you could not own human nature, but over time the advancement of scientific research and technology made genetic research and its findings more accessible. Genetic researchers were able to find genes that can help cure disease and could identify cancerous genes in humans. With companies being able to find these genes, they wanted to have chance to make money off of them;

Genetics has researched gene mutation. Myriad sequenced the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. The genes were associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. In 1996, Myraid had obtained patents on both genes and it became profitable. The first molecular diagnostic test for breast and ovarian cancer were around $3000. In 2009, Myraid was sued by the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Breast Cancer Action. The court ruled that genes could not be patented as

come in pairs, as G connects with C, and A with T, and the order of these base pairs is what creates the variance we see in every organism today. There are approximately 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, but only about 30,000 are actually our genes. However, one wrong letter out of 3 billion can cause extreme various in humans To put this into perspective, every human body is 99.9% identical in its genetic code. That means that .01% of