Following the launch of the Senate inquiry into Gene Patents by Senator Heffernan, Mervyn Jacobsen, founder and 40 per cent shareholder of the Melbourne company Genetic Technologies, which holds the patents for BRCA1 and BRCA2, backed down from threatened legal action.
A section of path, about two kilometres long, from Great Shelford to Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, is decorated with over 10,000 lines of four colours representing the nucleotide sequence of the BRCA2 gene.
BRCA2 |
Two of the company's patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes were ruled invalid on March 29, 2010 by Judge Robert W. Sweet in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
WCRI scientist Dr. Steven Narod was part of the team that discovered the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes as breast cancer risks– one of the most important breakthroughs in cancer research.