Last week, a Salt Lake City-based company, Myriad Genetics, filed patent infringement suits in Utah court alleging two other U.S. companies are infringing on its patents for BRCA1 and BRCA2, human breast cancer susceptibility genes.
But the story really dates back to the days before rapid gene sequencing when isolating a gene was challenging and painstaking research. Dozens of scientists were feeling their way along human chromosome 17 and later chromosome 13, drawing up the roadmaps as they went. In the process, they invented genetic cloning techniques and followed their hunches in a frenzied search for the mutation that cursed some women.
Read the full article here: Breast cancer gene patents: the Canadian story
