American Civil Liberties Union

Recently, Dr. James Watson filed an amicus brief opposing gene patents in our lawsuit challenging the patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Dr. Watson, along with Francis Crick, identified DNA’s ability to create life through its double helical structure and its information-coding sequences in 1953. His brief explains why, from the perspective of a scientist whose work laid the foundation for all genetic research, gene patenting is “lunacy.”

Today, we asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review an appellate court’s 2-1 ruling upholding patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.  The case challenges patents that pose a serious barrier to using new discoveries in genetic testing and how genes influence the way cancers develop and can be treated.

BRCA1 and BRCA2 are two of the 23,000 genes in the human genome, 20 percent of which have been patented.  We all have these genes, but women with certain genetic mutations are estimated to have up to an 85 percent risk for breast cancer and 50 percent risk for ovarian cancer.  Myriad Genetics obtained patents on the “isolated” forms of the two genes, which simply means it obtained a patent on the human gene once it has been removed from the cell.  It does not matter whether the genes come from you, me or any of the other 285 million people in the U.S., or whether you have a mutation or not – the patents claim them all.  Even though laboratories around the country are fully capable of providing genetic testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2 (and were already testing patients before the patents forced them to stop), the patents in essence give a monopoly over these genes. 

James Evans, MD, PhD is the Bryson Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Medicine at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine. He was a member of the advisory committee to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services on Genetics, Health and Society and spearheaded that committee's task force investigating gene patenting and its effect on patient care. He also filed an amicus brief in the ACLU's challenge to gene patents.

In honor of DNA Day, celebrated on April 25, the ACLU gives you an insider's take on our Supreme Court Argument on gene patenting.

Are human genes patentable? That is the question at issue in AMP v. Myriad Genetics, which the ACLU argued before the Supreme Court on Monday, April 15.