For those unaware of how much biotechnology is changing the very nature of human identity, now is the time for a quick game of catch-up. A good place to start might be Bregtje van der Haak’s documentary film, DNA Dreams. It highlights the resources being expended, globally, to purs... [More]

  One of Utah's leading medical technology companies, Myriad Genetics, is settling lawsuits related to several of its patents on genes related to breast and ovarian cancers, opening up competition it has not seen in nearly 15 years. Following an adverse appeals court ruling, Salt Lake City-... [More]

  After months of complaints from the pharmaceutical industry, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued revised guidelines for its examiners that should make it easier for drug makers and biotechs to obtain patents for their inventions. In general, the new guidelines take what the ag... [More]

  Canadian prosperity depends on our ability to innovate. When it comes to unlocking the power and mysteries of genomic medicine, our competitors in the United States now have free reign – but Canadian innovators continue to be shackled. The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontari... [More]

In the war against inequality, we’ve become so used to bad news that we’re almost taken aback when something positive happens. And with the Supreme Court having affirmed that wealthy people and corporations have a constitutional right to buy American elections, who would have exp... [More]

New Issue of GeneWatch Magazine:    Genetics Education   Since the completion of the Hu­man Genome Project in 2003, ge­nomic technologies have grown at an astounding rate and are rapidly becoming part of our everyday lives as patients, consumers, parents and citizen... [More]

Almost immediately after the Supreme Court ruled that human genes could not be patented, several laboratories announced they, too, would begin offering genetic testing for breast cancer risk, making it likely that that test and others could become more affordable and more widely available. ... [More]

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that companies cannot patent parts of naturally-occurring human genes, a decision with the potential to profoundly affect the emerging and lucrative medical and biotechnology industries. The high court’s unanimous judgment reverses three decades of paten... [More]

In May, the actress Angelina Jolie announced she had a preventive double mastectomy after learning she inherited a faulty copy of the BRCA1 gene, which put her at a high risk for breast and ovarian cancer. The genetic testing that gave her this information can only be conducted by one company, M... [More]

Gene patents have both restricted and distorted research. The clearest example is the way Myriad Genetics has used its patents on BRCA genes to become the sole provider of comprehensive BRCA testing, shutting down many of the early BRCA testing services that were part of genetics research proj... [More]