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a huge blow to all those requiring treatment for any genetic disease. Currently, researchers are beholden to the organizations for which they work, and many corporations would find themselves the benefactors of such a policy.

Complexities of Patenting Genes

Another problem is the volume of details that would have to be addressed should patenting be allowed for human genes. It would have to be outlined if derivative sequences are covered and to what extent. Which type of manipulations and treatment that is allowed would also have to determined, can a researcher work on the sequence without paying royalties? How will the different regulations affect the progress of curing disease? Then there's the question of how much the royalties should be and what access other researchers should have to the information or if they would even be allowed to determine the sequence themselves. These questions and their inevitable answers towards protecting copyright would slow research dramatically and cause politics to enter scientific research to an even greater extent as countries who disagree with each other hold gene sequences hostage from their researchers, leaving their citizens vulnerable.

The argument for not patenting human genes is more than a question of ethics and discerning the human entity. It is time for the scientific, legal, and business communities to get on the same page, for the sake of scientific progress, medicine, and patients.

Precedent for Patenting Human Genes

The U.S. Bayh-Dole Act, in an attempt to increase research with business incentives, opened the door for researchers to earn royalties from their discoveries. Recent years have found this approach to be detrimental to research. In an April 2008 issue of Nature, one of the top scientific research journals in the world, an editorial questioned business model-driven science, indicating the detriment it has had on AIDS vaccine research.

The awarding of U.S. patents for human genes is leading to international dissent and may be a point of contention between researchers in the U.S. and other countries. A 2005 study published in Science reported that 20 percent of human genes, approximately 4,000, have been patented, primarily by private firms and universities. The first patent was issued in 1978 for human growth hormone. The top patent holder is a California-based drug firm, which holds patents covering 2,000 human genes. This is extremely surprising because taxpayer money was used for the Human Genome project (according to the Institute on Biotechnology & The Human Future at Illinois Institute of Technology) and the fact that U.S. law prohibits patents on products of nature, physical phenomena, and scientific formulas.

Learn more about this author, Alicia M Prater PhD.
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