Webinar by Naomi Hawkins, 19-03-19

TIME MBE is pleased to invite you to a free webinar. 

Please join us for a webinar on Tuesday the 19th of March 2019 at 12:00 London time i.e. 13:00 Brussels time, 14:00 Athens time. The speaker is Naomi Hawkins, University of Exeter, UK. The title of the talk is “Patents and genomic medicine".

The moderator will be Dr. Andreas Panagopoulos. The program we use to deliver webinars is called VSee and you can easily download it for free. A very short demo of VSee can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDb7-Mrz0L4.

This webinar is free and open to all. To participate and for further information, please contact Dr. Andreas Panagopoulos at least a day prior to the seminar.

Abstract:

Significant controversy exists about the potential for patents on human genes to have a negative effect on patient care. Numerous patents in relation to human genetic material have been granted, and whilst some of these have been overturned in legal proceedings in the USA and Australia relatively recently, many continue to exist.  Concerns over disease gene patents, patents for non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) and in relation to CRISPR gene editing technologies are ongoing.

In this presentation I will explore some of the questions that arise from the application of intellectual property law in human genetics and genomics in clinical practice. In particular, I will report the results of empirical work considering the role of patents in the development and delivery of NIPT. NIPT is an early innovation in genomic medicine to be implemented into clinical practice, and is the precursor of many new technologies which are predicted to transform medical practice in the near future. The role that patents play in this field therefore constitutes an excellent case study to predict the impact of patents in practice in the burgeoning field of genomic medicine.