Learn · TED

Talk18 min

Should you be able to patent a human gene?

Tania Simoncelli · TED

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About

A decade ago, US law said human genes were patentable -- which meant patent holders had the right to stop anyone from sequencing, testing or even looking at a patented gene. Troubled by the way this law both harmed patients and created a barrier to biomedical innovation, Tania Simoncelli and her colleagues at the ACLU challenged it. In this riveting talk, hear the story of how they took a case everybody told them they would lose all the way to the Supreme Court.

The talk

  1. Should you be able to patent a human gene? 18 min · TED's player

Credits and licence

Institution
TED
Department
TEDxAmoskeagMillyard
Speaker
Tania Simoncelli
Year
2014
Level
For everyone
Language
English
Subjects
Biology, Medicine and health, Society and politics, Law
Source
TED
Licence
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, as TED states it. Non-commercial use only, and no changed versions. TED's terms
Attribution
TED Talks are licensed by TED under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 International and are shown here in TED's own player, as TED's usage policy asks.
Who can watch
TED gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from what the source says about it. How courses are placed