AUGUST 2003 Editorial
The cream of the world’s genetics community converged on
Melbourne in their thousands last month for the “Olympics
of Genetics”, an international conference held every 5 years.
The conference coincided with the 50th anniversary since James
Watson and Francis Crick determined the structure of DNA. It was
also the first time that the conference had been held since researchers
had sequenced the three billion nucleotides that make up the human
genome.
The conference should have been a celebration, but it was marked
by angst over the directions the field is taking, and who is leading
it there.
Nobel Laureates like John Sulston teamed with Francis Collins,
who led the international effort to sequence the human genome
and keep it in public hands, in their condemnation of the privatisation
of the genome through the patent system. Their chief whipping
boy was Malcolm Simons, the Australian maverick who patented 95%
of the genome in the mid-1990s when non-coding DNA was considered
junk.
But one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and geneticists
are now finding there is much more to non-coding DNA and are alarmed
that the company Simons cofounded, Genetics Technologies, is now
enforcing its patents.
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But while the geneticists argued over the principle of public
ownership of DNA, there was little input from the legal community.
Legal opinion was restricted to a forum on privacy issues raised
by genetics, but otherwise debate over DNA patenting was left
to the scientists.
While this month Australasian Science features a special
section on the research presented at the 19th International Congress
of Genetics, we have gone outside the conference for legal comment
on the issue of access to DNA in the genome age.
Matthew Rimmer, an intellectual property lecturer specialising
in agriculture, reveals that the issue is not confined to the
human genome. Rather, private companies are rapidly moving in
on other important genomes, such as rice, with important ramifications
for food security.
The companies that have sequenced these genomes are hiding behind
a combination of contract law, copyright law and patent law to
control access to sequence databases. Already most geneticists
say that their requests for data are being refused.
The sequencing of the genome promised to open up new horizons
for researchers throughout the world. Unless they can band together
to form a fighting fund to challenge these patents in court it
seems many of these horizons will be left unexplored until the
patents expire in coming decades.
Even then scientists will need thorough legal advice to ensure
their research doesn’t infringe someone else’s intellectual
property. Genetics Technologies, for instance, has already identified
thousands of potential infringements of its patents.
Guy Nolch
Editor
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