Jorge Contreras: Professor of Property Law and Genetics | Who Owns Your DNA? - Episode 39 - a podcast by Perkins Coie LLP

Jorge Contreras, professor of property law and genetics at the University of Utah, joins Dominique and David to describe his latest book, The Genome Defense. The book reads like a detective novel as he follows American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyers who, after years of litigation, convince the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn prior decisions, ruling that naturally occurring genetic code was patentable. This is a great discussion about who owns a person's genetic information—and how this information can predict susceptibility to disease (in this case, breast cancer) and prompt dramatic preventative measures. He also discusses the intellectual property issues surrounding the development of the recent RNA COVID-19 vaccines and the value of creating DNA variants as intellectual property in healthcare. Genes are being edited all the time; Jorge gives his thoughts on how much genetic information should be available to the public for free and how much it should be commercialized.

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