[IP Hot Topics Podcast] Innovation Conversations: Walter Isaacson, Part 1
Clinton: SCOTUS Myriad Genetics Decision 'Terrific'
Can You Patent Human Genes? ACLU Says No
Yours, Mine and Ours (not yet!): An Update on the Patentability of Human Genes
China is considering new export restrictions on advanced technologies, including, in particular, in the life sciences sectors. In late December 2022, China’s Ministry of Commerce (“MOFCOM”) issued the proposed amendment to...more
The investments in Advanced Medicinal Products (ATMPs) that use gene therapy, somatic cell therapy, and engineered tissues for preventing, treating, or curing human diseases probably represent the biggest innovation in the...more
An international cadre of scientists* from almost 70 institutions worldwide recently reported their findings in the scientific journal Nature that the domesticated dog (Canis familiaris) arose from two populations of...more
The humble peach has been the inspiration for pies, album titles, independent movies, and a fictional woman's baseball team, but is also an important food species, yielding 24.5 million tons globally in 2018. Like all plant...more
The dire wolf (Canis dirus), prototype of the various wolves that were important members of the House Stark family of characters in Game of Thrones, was found uniquely in North America until its extinction in the late...more
Cancer, the "Emperor of All Maladies" as it has been termed, has been studied for millennia. President Nixon's "War on Cancer" resulted in slow but steady progress, aided by the biotechnology revolution, the development of...more
The Fountain of Youth -- an enduring aspiration, particularly as the ravages of age reduce human faculties prior to leading inexorably to death. Reduction in sight is the human faculty that can have the greatest effect on...more
Over the past decade, genetic archeology has revealed two branches of the human family tree, one known since the 19th Century (the Neanderthals) and the other more recently discovered (the Denisovans, an Asian relative of the...more
Svante Pääbo created the science of detecting Neanderthal DNA in archeological samples (and living humans) almost single-handedly (see Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes). So it will come as little surprise to many...more
Last week the California legislature passed an important first step in protecting the American public from itself. The Genetic Information Privacy Act (GIPA) helps fill a gap in U.S. healthcare privacy that most people don’t...more
Genetic instability has long been recognized as a hallmark of oncogenesis and tumor progression. The phenomenon was first identified cytogenetically, most famously by the Philadelphia chromosome in chronic myelogenous...more
Lions (Panthera leo) once were a widely distributed group of terrestrial mammals, ranging during the Pleistocene (from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago) in Eurasia, Africa, and North America, with species that included the...more
Last week, Veritas Genetics, a consumer-facing DNA testing company, suffered a security breach affecting customer information in its database. Veritas offers whole-genome sequencing to consumers for $599. The security...more
The avocado, having gained popularity (at least in the U.S.) as a convenient (and delicious) vehicle for consuming otherwise not particularly healthful corn chips, has more recently been hailed as a "superfood" when consumed...more
Sequenom filed its anticipated petition for certiorari today for Supreme Court review of the Federal Circuit's decision in Ariosa v. Sequenom. The petition advises the Court that it "should take this opportunity to provide...more
In one of the first district court decisions applying the U.S. Supreme Court’s new Myriad patent-eligibility standard, the Northern District of California held that diagnostic claims containing only conventional and existing...more
In a paper published in March in the journal Genome Medicine, Dr. Jeffrey Rosenfeld of the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey and Dr. Christopher Mason of Cornell University contended that due to the...more
On June 13, the Genetic Alliance announced the launch of an initiative to fill the public information gap caused by the lack of available genetic information for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. ...more