ANGELINA JOLIE’S revelation that she had had a preventive double mastectomy was eloquent and brave. She had learned that she inherited a faulty copy of a gene, BRCA1, that put her at high risk for invasive breast cancer as well as ovarian cancer. Now women everywhere are asking: Should I g... [More]

The Supreme Court recently began deliberations in a case that highlights a deeply problematic issue concerning intellectual property rights: Can human genes—your genes—be patented? Put another way, should someone essentially be permitted to own the right, say, to test whether you hav... [More]

Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy revelation had the unintended side-effect of boosting the share price for the biotech firm that owns the patent to her “breast cancer gene,” highlighting an ongoing US Supreme Court battle over the right to patent life. On Monday, Jolie tol... [More]

On April 15, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics. This was another significant step—probably the penultimate one—in the long-running Myriad drama. It began with a group of plaintiffs (including researchers, doctors, an... [More]

The U.S. Supreme Court isn't the only high court considering a precedent-setting case on patenting human genes. Australia's Full Federal Court this week began proceedings in an appeal of an earlier decision that upheld the validity of breast cancer diagnostic tests developed by Myriad Genetics&m... [More]

Tracey Barraclough made a grim discovery in 1998. She found she possessed a gene that predisposed her to cancer. "I was told I had up to an 85% chance of developing breast cancer and an up to 60% chance of developing ovarian cancer," she recalls. The piece of DNA responsible for her grim predisp... [More]

The business of DNA is undergoing a revolution. We can already get our genes scanned for the bargain-basement price of $99. Soon we’ll be able to have entire genomes sequenced for less than the cost of a MacBook Air. That’s huge considering that not so long ago it cost billions of do... [More]

The Supreme Court on Monday seemed skeptical that a human gene can be patented but also worried about what a decision to bar such patents would mean for private scientific inquiry and research.   Even the normally confident justices expressed some trepidation as they considered the comp... [More]

When Daniel Weaver pitches Genformatic to potential investors, he feels obliged to note a future legal uncertainty. The two-year-old company, based in Austin, Texas, offers whole-genome sequencing and analysis to researchers and physicians, with plans to apply the technology to medical diagnostics... [More]

Authorities have gone too far in allowing claims on DNA   For more than 30 years legal authorities around the world have been arguing about the patentability of DNA. The next round takes place on April 15 when the US Supreme Court hears a challenge to patents held by Myriad Genetics ... [More]