Breast Cancer Gene Case Has Another Day in Court
By Eric Hoffman and Jaydee Hanson, Biopolitical Times guest contributors
| 04. 07. 2011
A three-judge federal appeals court heard arguments on Monday in a
case that could decide the future of human gene patents. The
high-profile lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and
the Public Patent Foundation on behalf of a number of researchers,
patients, women’s health organizations and scientific organizations
against Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah Research Foundation,
holders of patents on genes known as BRCA1 and BRCA2 that are associated
with elevated risk of breast cancer. The plaintiffs argue that the US
Patent and Trade Office erred in granting these patents because genes
are products of nature, not human inventions.
The panel heard Myriad’s appeal of a decision strongly favoring the
plaintiffs that was issued in March 2010 by Federal District Court Judge
Robert Sweet. Whatever is decided by the appeals court, many observers
expect the case to continue on to the Supreme Court.
A few things stood out in Monday’s hearing. First, the judges were very
interested in whether all the plaintiffs actually have standing in the
case – that is, in whether they have...
Related Articles
Paula Amato & Shoukhrat Mitalipov
[OHSU News/Christine Torres Hicks]
On September 30th, a team of 21 scientists from Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) published a significant paper in Nature Communications, with a scientifically accurate but, to many, somewhat abstruse headline:
Induction of experimental cell division to generate cells with reduced chromosome ploidy
The lead authors were Shoukhrat Mitalipov, recently described here as “a push-the-envelope biologist,” and his long-term colleague Paula Amato. (Recall that in July the pair had co-published with...
By Pam Belluck, The New York Times | 10.17.2025
Before dawn on a March morning, Doug Whitney walked into a medical center 2,000 miles from home, about to transform from a mild-mannered, bespectacled retiree into a superhuman research subject.
First, a doctor inserted a needle into his back to...
By Elizabeth Dwoskin and Zoeann Murphy, The Washington Post | 10.01.2025
MEXICO CITY — When she walked into an IVF clinic in June, Alin Quintana knew it would be the last time she would try to conceive a child. She had prepared herself spiritually and mentally for the visit: She had traveled to a nearby...
By Rob Stein, NPR | 09.30.2025
Scientists have created human eggs containing genes from adult skin cells, a step that someday could help women who are infertile or gay couples have babies with their own genes but would also raise difficult ethical, social and legal issues...
