Focus is shifting from Judge Sweet’s, 152 pages, landmark opinion -- AMP (Association for Molecular Pathology et al.) v. US Patent & Trademark Office, 1:09-cv-04515-RWS Doc. 255 — ruling that the DNA is unpatentable to the more fundamental question whether Gene Patent is needed for the biotechnology industry’s  survival and biomedical advance. After all, as NIH Director Francis Collins writes in Nature -- Human Genome at ten Opinion, Has the revolution arrived ? —  “free and open access to genome data has had a profoundly positive effect on progress.”

From the prospective of the biotechnology industry itself, the  transition from single gene testing to multiplex testing and whole-genome sequencing, arguably makes gene patentability less relevant   than  many still claim. In addition, the National Institutes of Health has recently announced that by 2011 “researchers, consumers, health care providers, and others”  will be able to search a Genetic Testing Registry (GTR) for information submitted voluntarily by genetic test providers. The GTR is a clearly stated effort to provide access to information on the more than 1,600 genetic tests of which patients and consumers  are not  currently informed for lack of a “single public resource that provides detailed information” about the tests that are available to them. The evaluation and the impact of NIH Genetic Testing Registry on genetic testing laboratories, personal genomics service providers, as well as  purchasers of genetic tests are now being evaluated -- Has the revolution arrived?

Read more...

* Photo credits: http://singularityhub.com/tag/robert-sweet/