Who Own's the Genome?


The Genetic Age: Who Owns the Genome?
Tuesday, September 24, 2002, 7:00pm Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Washington, D.C
A symposium on intellectual property and the human genome
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the double helix, issues relating to the use of intellectual property in genetic research, medicine and health care have never been more prominent. Chief among these issues is the patenting of human DNA sequences.
- Is the patenting of gene sequences necessary to attract capital and protect the rights of inventors?
- Are gene patents inhibiting the work of scientists and stifling innovation?
The event highlighted many of the legal, economic and ethical considerations of this timely and important topic, panelists represented a diversity of backgrounds, experiences and opinions.

	VIEW WEBCAST OF EVENT September, 24, 2002 7:00 pm EST Read Opening Remarks by The Honorable Lee H. Hamilton, Director, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Read Opening Remarks by Stephen P.A. Fodor, Ph.D., Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, Affymetrix, Inc.
Panelists
	Eric. S. Lander, Ph.D., Professor of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Director of the Whitehead Center for Genome Research. Dr. Lander is a geneticist, molecular biologist and a mathematician and one of the driving forces behind today's revolution in genomics, the study of all of the genes in an organism and how they function together in health and disease. He has been one of the principal leaders of the Human Genome Project. Under Lander's leadership, the Whitehead Center for Genome Research has been responsible for developing many of the key tools of modern mammalian genomics.

	Q. Todd Dickinson, JD, Partner, Howrey Simon Arnold & White, former Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Mr. Dickinson has more than twenty-five years of experience in all aspects of intellectual property law and public policy, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. Mr. Dickinson has written extensively on subjects from genomic patents to e-commerce and IP enforcement in a knowledge-based economy.

	Pilar N. Ossorio, Ph.D., JD, Assistant Professor of Law & Medical Ethics and Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of Cultural Diversity in Health Care, University of Wisconsin. In addition to her work at the University of Wisconsin, Professor Ossorio taught law at the University of Chicago and worked in bioethics research for the United States Department of Energy in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Professor Ossorio has written extensively in the field of bioethics and the law and serves on the Committee on Intellectual Property Rights, the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences.

	Scott A. Brown, JD, Vice President, Chief Patent Counsel, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Mr. Brown oversees development and implementation of Millennium's intellectual property strategy, including procurement of patents, review of intellectual property aspects of company transactions and analysis of intellectual property issues relating to Millennium's activities. Prior to joining Millennium, Mr. Brown was Senior Patent Counsel at Genetics Institute, Inc. and an attorney with the firms of Kenyon & Kenyon and Dorsey & Whitney.

Moderator Justin Gillis Staff Reporter, The Washington Post Gillis is a reporter on the business news desk of The Washington Post. He specializes in coverage of the Biotechnology industry. He is a native of Georgia and spent many years in Miami and in Washington as an award-winning investigative reporter before switching over to Biotechnology coverage in 1997. He lives and works in Washington.
Reading Material
Biojudiciary.org http://www.biojudiciary.org/subpage1.asp?tid=100 Biotechnology Industry Organization - Intellectual Property positions http://www.bio.org/ip/ The Nuffield Council on Bioethics The Ethics of Patenting DNA http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/publications/pp_0000000014.asp American Medical School Association A Primer on Gene Patents http://www.amsa.org/pdf/genepatents.pdf Forbes Magazine Genome Scientists: Gene Patents are Bad http://www.forbes.com/technology/2002/06/26/0626targets.html American College of Medical Genetics Position Statement on Gene Patents Oversight Hearing: Gene Patents and other Genomic Inventions Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives http://www.house.gov/judiciary/ct071300.htm Federal Trade Commission Competition and Intellectual Property Law and Policy in the Knowledge-Based Economy http://www.ftc.gov/opp/intellect/index.htm Scientific American Talking Gene Patents http://watson.fapesp.br/nuplitec/artigos/scieamer.htm


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