Our genes are nature's software - chemical codes honed by millions of years of evolution to fabricate the substances that make us what we are. Scientists' new knowledge of these codes, and their commonest flaws, promises to make the 21st century an era when some of the deadliest diseases are eradicated. By patenting gene sequences, the claimants argue, they are ensuring they will be able to recover the money they have spent to find them, and gain the financial incentive to work out how to use them to benefit humankind. Not so, argue the critics of gene patenting. For one thing, to claim exclusive rights to commercial exploitation of something everyone is born with is to abuse the patent system, which was set up to reward inventors, not discoverers.
Some genes are more valuable than others.
Professor Simon Lovestone, of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, is one of a group of several dozen scientists around the world about to spark off a new gene hunt when they publish the results of research pinpointing a region of human DNA where a gene contributing to the onset of Alzheimer's disease is to be found. Patent control over a second Alzheimer's gene would make reliable advanced diagnosis more likely, and could contribute towards developing a cure. One estimate of the annual market for Alzheimer's therapy is 100 billion. An Alzheime's gene patent, even without a cure, would do wonders for a firm's share price in the cut-throat world of biotech competition. Had Prof Lovestone and his collaborators been working for a private firm, they would have held off publishing details of their discovery until they had found the exact location of the gene, recorded its chemical sequence, and filed a patent application.