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This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Human Genome Project, an ambitious undertaking to map the entire human DNA sequence. But for over 20 years the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been issuing patents on human genes, with for-profit institutions and researchers laying claim to about 20% of the human genome. Now, a federal judge’s decision this week to invalidate several commercial patents on human genes has rocked the bio-technology industry. Judge Robert Sweet, in the case over who owns the BRCA1 and 2 genes linked to hereditary forms of breast and ovarian cancer, ruled against the Utah-based company Myriad Genetics Inc. Myriad had asserted that it had the right to own a patent on genes that it worked to isolate from surrounding DNA. But the plaintiffs in the case, which include doctors, women with cancer, and the ACLU, assert that patenting human genes was in violation of patent laws and also unconstitutional. This week’s ruling could void all patents on human DNA with industry spokespeople claiming that it sounds a potential death knell for medical innovation. But many doctors and researchers expect the ruling to actually spur innovation and make existing medical technology and testing more widely accessible. The Federal Circuit Court however is likely to reverse Judge Sweet’s decision, and eventually open the door to a showdown in the Supreme Court.

GUESTS: Robert Cook-Deegan, Director of the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, author of “The Gene Wars: Science, Politics, and the Human Genome,” Chris Hansen, staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working Group