Patenting Human Biological Materials As part of a discussion on intellectual property, and after watching a video about a scientist who was under contract by a company to engineer a line of knockout mouse (a mouse who is designed to not express a gene normally expressed by mice) and the compnay will not allow the scientist's collaborators to have any of the mice without their signing a material transfer agreement (which is standard) that does not allow them to share the mice (still standard) and prevents them from publishing any results without the company's approval (my problem is here), we were given this question. Do you have any objections to patenting DNA, cell lines, proteins, tissues, animals, or other human biological materials? Patents are issued for original inventions or ideas. If a person engineers a cell line, a DNA sequence, an animal, a protein, or any other material it should be eligible for a patent. The financial gain from such a patent is disputable. Today’s society is highly focused on monetary gain. I take a more humanitarian view of things and would like to think that benefit to mankind supercedes personal gain. Most research on human biological materials is medical related whether it be pharmaceutical, surgical, or to understand the underlying mechanisms of disease. The pursuit of knowledge in the biomedical field is to benefit human beings. To pursue it as a financial interest is to pervert the very discovery process itself. For example, in the video about the knockout mice engineered by the scientist with the financial backing of the company, the mice are the scientist’s intellectual property and patentable creation. He signed away his rights of ownership of that patent to the company before starting work. Thus, the company actually owns the mice and the unique process which created them. To share these unique mice with other researchers would be beneficial to the scientific process. To sell them or filter what they are used for prevents the exploration of many possible uses for the mice and possibly the verification of prior results which is necessary in the scientific process. Companies are in their very essence financially driven entities. It is understandable that they would want to reap profits from their investments. However, the well being of other human beings should not be an investment, it should be necessary. Any objections I have to the patenting of human biological materials would be the financial drive associated with it. I believe a person should receive credit for their unique creations and should have the time to use and improve upon their invention before the rest of the world can tear it apart. However, I also believe that sharing is necessary in science and that the pursuit of knowledge is a selfless act to benefit everyone. A person does not become a scientist for the money. A person becomes a scientist to learn, to teach, and to make a difference. This question is from "Responsible Conduct in Research" Shamoo and Resnik, 2003 Oxford University Press, page 135 image: Human Genome Project http://www.hgsc.bcm.tmc.edu/graphics/genome3.jpg