>
The struggle to decode the human genome became a race between
>American GE firm Celera, and British publicly-funded science, with its
>commitment to open access to genomic code and rejection of the
privatisation
>of human genes.
>
>According to agreements announced today, the preliminary 'First Draft' of
>the 'Book of Life' will be jointly published by the Sanger Centre and
>Celera;
The British desire to keep the human genome in the public sphere is admirable, but the whole issue of patenting genes would vanish overnight if we simply recognized what molecular biologists already know, that genes do not constitute a set of blueprints upon which tissues and organs are created. There is no scientific basis for the idea that genes can be treated as a form of intellectual property. They do not contain information. They do not possess within themselves the essence of whatever useful morphological traits we associate with them. There's simply nothing in there to patent.
Perhaps the reason this secret hasn't gotten out to the general public is that geneticists stand to make a killing from the misconception of genes as the "Book of Life."
Ted