Supreme Court Ruling on Gene Patents Will Speed Up Oligonucleotides Revolution in Health Care. That is According to Author of New Gene Patch Medicine (Oligonucleotides) Book
On June 13, 2013, the United States Supreme Court ruled that naturally occurring human genes can’t be patented. The decision should encourage researchers to move forward with potentially life-saving genetic testing for a variety of diseases.
Oligonucleotides
Dr. Stephen B. Shrewsbury says that the decoding of the human genome has led to the discovery of dozens of new medicines that may prevent or treat genetic disease. Shrewsbury has just published Defy Your DNA: How the New Gene Patch Personalized Medicines Will Help You Overcome Your Greatest Health Challenges. Called oligos, oligomers or oligonucleotides, these medicines are nicknamed gene patches. Shrewsbury says “these gene patches act like computer software patches. They fix the faulty message that comes from a damaged pieces of genetic code. If those faulty genes were patented, it would make it more difficult for researchers to develop these patches”.
Dr. Shrewsbury adds: “This new type of drug has the potential to stop everything from cancer and diabetes to rare diseases like muscular dystrophy and sickle cell anemia. These medicines will revolutionize healthcare. They may be the greatest medical breakthrough since penicillin.”
Oligonucleotides
Shrewsbury predicts blockbuster drugs will be replaced in future by personalized medicines. These very accurate gene patches will be very precise and personal to you and your disease. In the more distant future, gene patch therapy will be superseded by gene replacement therapy. Then new genes may be inserted while removing damaged ones.
The Supreme Court ruled that patents owned by Salt Lake City-based Myriad Genetics were void. The court noted that the patents covered DNA isolated from the human body. The court said that was different from synthetic DNA being created in a lab. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote: “We hold that a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature. It is not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated.”
This ruling is a win-win for both Oligonucleotides researchers and patients alike, believes Dr. Shrewsbury. The ruling will help medical research on drugs such as those described in Defy Your DNA. “A big benefit with this new type of gene patch (oligo) medicine is that the development program should take less time,” he says. He also believes costs of genetic profile testing will become more affordable for the average family. Together genetic testing and gene patch medicines (oligos) will lead to a brave new medical world.
“In the not too distant future, when a child is born, they’ll be required to have two documents: a birth certificate and a map of their DNA” added Shrewsbury. “From birth we will know what diseases we run greater risks of getting, how to better avoid them or when to start focused testing for their early detection.