Naslov
Intelektualno vlasništvo i etika u medicini
(Intellectual Property and Ethics in Medicine)

Autori
Zamola, Branimir

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
Biotehnologija i Biomedicina / Kniewald, Zlatko - Zagreb : Hrvatsko Društvo za Biotehnologiju, 1999

Skup
Biotehnologija i Biomedicina, znanstveni skup s međunarodnim sudjelovanjem

Mjesto i datum
Zagreb, Hrvatska, 22.02.1999. - 23.02.1999

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Domaća recenzija

Ključne riječi
intelektualno vlasništvo; etika; biomedicina; genska terapija
(Intellectual property; Ethics; Biomedicine; Gene Therapy)

Sažetak
This work deals with drugs and therapy in the field of biotechnology and inventions arising from the methods of genetic engineering and recombinant DNA. The European Patents Commission (EPC) does not mention genes, but genes can also be protected by patent. (1) Since DNA is molekule which determines genetics information, the biochemical substance is thus treated by the patenting office like every other chemical substance. A large number of genes are protected by patent. Multinational companies think that patenting is necessary, particularly if financial means and years invested in research and development are at stake. The efforts to use the isolated stock of genes come face to face with non-governmental institutions from the Southern Hemisphere which are poor and request a just division of the fruits of the biotechnological revolution. The southern nations think that developmant and efforts had already been going on for years before scientists and researchers from the North began to investigate the genes of plants, animals or man. From the ethical point of view, the dilemma lies in wether genetic manipulations should be allowed, and in the best case, whether the genetics enhancement of human beings should be allowed and regulated by law. (2) One such understanding is that human genetic therapy is very dubious bacause therapeutic engineering will lead to technological changes of such momentum that genetic enhancement will be imposed and later difficult to control. Another group of scientists poses the question: what is health, disease or normality? Who owns the genome? What is the place of ethics in relation to the genetic revolution? (3) The final question is: if it were possible to eliminate a lethal gene from the human population by forms of germline manipulation, is there any convincing moral reason why this should not be done? The issue then arises whether it will be at all possible to limit and prohibit research in this field. Human gene therapy has arrived much sooner in medicine than many scientists and ethicists had predicted. In this work a range of practical examples will be shown where, in 1993, an international trust discovered that the government of the USA had sold the national patent of a virus extracted from cell-line of a Guaymi Indian from Panama, or where, in 1996, the Indian Society of Human Genetics issued a range of documents in which they requested the prohibition of transporting "blood, cell-lines, DNA, bones and fossil material".This work will also show that in the USA companies patent cell-lines and the genome of their citizens, as was the case of a businessman from Alaska, when at the California University Clinic the cell-line from a patient's tissue was patented and the University obtained the patent as its own "invention". Nevertheless, this work will also reveal that the tendency of science is to prevent and treat disease, and not to enhance genomes.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Strojarstvo

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