8 ms·

Unanimous judgment, though Scalia concurred in part and filed a separate opinion. Myriad kind of still wins as their cDNA synthesis technique is affirmed paten

by mpyne 13y ago

Unanimous judgment, though Scalia concurred in part and filed a separate opinion. Myriad kind of still wins as their cDNA synthesis technique is affirmed patentable, which would presumably be used in conjunction with a patient's own BRCA genes to determine their cancer risk. So the precise test itself appears patented still, but now other companies can make use of the BRCA genes themselves, perhaps to develop other treatments that don't use the cDNA synthesis technique.

jweese 13y ago
Justice Scalia's concurrence, reproduced here in full: "I join the judgment of the Court, and all of its opinion except Part I–A and some portions of the rest of the opinion going into fine details of molecular biology. I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief. It suffices for me to affirm, having studied the opinions below and the expert briefs presented here, that the portion of DNA isolated from its natural state sought to be patented is identical to that portion of the DNA in its natural state; and that complementary DNA (cDNA) is a synthetic creation not normally present in nature."
- rayiner 13y ago
  You have to appreciate his dedication to rigor.
  - wavefunction 13y ago
    He's consistent, which is about the only nice thing I'd want to say about him.
    - vaadu 13y ago
      Your ignorance is staggering. He voted that the police should not be permitted to take your DNA just because you were arrested. He voted that government should not be permitted to take your property and give it to another private entity because it will generate higher taxes. He voted that the police should not be permitted to enter your property with drug sniffing dogs without a warrant. He voted that authorities scanning a home with an infrared camera without a warrant constituted an unreasonable search.
      - pessimizer 13y ago
        If you conclude that those four votes mean that nobody can think that he's vile, you're the ignorant one.
        twoodfin 13y ago
        "Vile" is a pretty strong term, especially to use in a political context.
      - shardling 13y ago
        It's interesting that you just assume the OP would take your side on those issues. If literally everyone agreed, they would not be an issue. :) Completely orthogonally, sometimes people judge someone based on the intention behind their actions.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        "Seldom has an opinion of this Court rested so obviously upon nothing but the personal views of its members", said Scalia when the court found it unconstitutional to execute the profoundly mentally disabled. "If it were impossible for individual human beings (or groups of human beings) to act autonomously in effective pursuit of a common goal, the game of soccer would not exist", he said, when the court found it unconstitutional for the VMI to refuse admission to women. "This ruling will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed [...] The nation will live to regret what the court has done today" he said when the court held that Guantanamo detainees have the right to appeal their captivity to federal courts. "Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the Constitution?" he said, under obvious circumstances. "Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda" he said, in attempting to retain a law that criminalized same-sex relationships in Texas.
      - wavefunction 13y ago
        I thought about saying something very rude to you about me being entitled to my opinion, but I won't.
- dekhn 13y ago
  cDNA occurs in nature (reverse transcriptase). In fact DNA intermediates with introns spliced can be reintegrated into the genome. Further, faulty viruses can acquire oncogenes (intron-splicted, mtuated versions of growth factors, like EGF and HER2/neu) and transfer them to other cells via cDNA intermediates. It's not hard to believe that nature has in fact passed BRCA cDNAs around via retroviral intermediates.
  - dnautics 13y ago
    RT doesn't work that way, it requires a specific site near its target gene in order to make the DNA strand. There is off-target activity, but it is almost certainly vanishingly rare.
    - dekhn 13y ago
      "almost certainly vanishingly rare event" * "incredibly high rate of reproduction of viruses" = almost certainty. See the first 4 chapters of "Biology of Cancer" by Weinberg.
      - dnautics 13y ago
        molecular biology can deal with probabilities that are lower than 1/the number of particles in the universe.
        dekhn 13y ago
        again, have you read "The Biology of Cancer", by Weinberg? There is strong evidence for what I'm saying.
        dekhn 13y ago
        Further, I'm not sure what the relationship of probabilities to the number of particles in the universe is. The probability of any given sequence emitted by hmmer as the "highest probability" is tiny (often 10e-50 or better, and for very good matches, 10e-138). So what's your point?
- 1337biz 13y ago
  I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief. I wish more public officials would show this kind of honesty, esp. those voting on new laws and regulations. I am waiting for the first politician to come foward with a "I have no idea of this stuff, can anyone of my constituents explain to me how and why to vote on that" message.
  - takluyver 13y ago
    > I am waiting for the first politician to come foward with a "I have no idea of this stuff, can anyone of my constituents explain to me how and why to vote on that" message. I suspect all too many of their constituents would be very happy to explain how they should vote on all sorts of matters. Getting peoples' opinions is the easy bit, working out which ones are worth listening to is the challenge. Maybe we should just go with the most prevalent opinion on any issue. But, besides the practical issues, we can all probably think of at least one issue where we think the majority of people have got it wrong. We'd like our reasons to be considered, not just our numbers.
  - davidp 13y ago
    > "I have no idea of this stuff, can anyone of my constituents explain to me how and why to vote on that" That is precisely the primary function of lobbyists, as distasteful as it sounds when that word is used. Many lobbyists also buy access, which is a separate problem. Can you imagine the disastrous mess Congress would create if they knew even _less_ than they already know about the areas they're legislating? This is why regulating lobbying is hard; at root it's just citizens speaking to elected leaders (again, until money gets involved).
unmei 13y ago
But they surely don't have a patent on all cDNA synthesis techniques, especially given that that is a highly generic technique (it should fall under the "obvious from previous art" criteria). So other companies should be able to utilize a cDNA as well so long as they don't simply follow the Myriad protocol?
- jweese 13y ago
  I believe they just have a patent on these particular cDNA types, namely cDNA created from BRCA1 or BRCA2, and not on the well-known lab techniques for creating them.
  - daughart 13y ago
    I believe you are correct here.
- mpyne 13y ago
  I don't know the details, I only browsed through the front matter/syllabus, and I've certainly not read the patent in question.
- tomku 13y ago
  Their patent isn't on technique ("method" in the ruling), but on the actual cDNA sequence itself. As such, it's specific to the two BRCA genes. Of course, that just makes it even more ridiculous.
  - unmei 13y ago
    I guess my question is, do they still have a patent on any BRCA1/2 cDNA or only that specifically created according to their method?
    - tomku 13y ago
      According to the ruling, their patent specifies a sequence of nucleotides of cDNA independent of any method used to create them. I read that to mean that any BRCA1 or BRCA2 cDNA that matches that exact sequence would be infringing on Myriad's patent, regardless of how it was created.
tocomment 13y ago
But there are ways of detecting BRCA mutations without cDNA right? What does 23andme use? Isn't that a chip based method? And straight genome sequencing which should be cheap enough in a few years is another way around it, no?
dnautics 13y ago
yeah, but no one uses cDNA synthesis to do genotyping anymore. They use genechips or direct sequencincg. Direct sequencing is NOT covered by the myriad patent; and genechips use such short DNA sequences that the 'intron' exception doesn't hold.

by mpyne 13y ago

jweese 13y ago

Justice Scalia's concurrence, reproduced here in full: "I join the judgment of the Court, and all of its opinion except Part I–A and some portions of the rest of the opinion going into fine details of molecular biology. I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief. It suffices for me to affirm, having studied the opinions below and the expert briefs presented here, that the portion of DNA isolated from its natural state sought to be patented is identical to that portion of the DNA in its natural state; and that complementary DNA (cDNA) is a synthetic creation not normally present in nature."

rayiner 13y ago
You have to appreciate his dedication to rigor.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  He's consistent, which is about the only nice thing I'd want to say about him.
  - vaadu 13y ago
    Your ignorance is staggering. He voted that the police should not be permitted to take your DNA just because you were arrested. He voted that government should not be permitted to take your property and give it to another private entity because it will generate higher taxes. He voted that the police should not be permitted to enter your property with drug sniffing dogs without a warrant. He voted that authorities scanning a home with an infrared camera without a warrant constituted an unreasonable search.
    - pessimizer 13y ago
      If you conclude that those four votes mean that nobody can think that he's vile, you're the ignorant one.
      - twoodfin 13y ago
        "Vile" is a pretty strong term, especially to use in a political context.
    - shardling 13y ago
      It's interesting that you just assume the OP would take your side on those issues. If literally everyone agreed, they would not be an issue. :) Completely orthogonally, sometimes people judge someone based on the intention behind their actions.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      "Seldom has an opinion of this Court rested so obviously upon nothing but the personal views of its members", said Scalia when the court found it unconstitutional to execute the profoundly mentally disabled. "If it were impossible for individual human beings (or groups of human beings) to act autonomously in effective pursuit of a common goal, the game of soccer would not exist", he said, when the court found it unconstitutional for the VMI to refuse admission to women. "This ruling will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed [...] The nation will live to regret what the court has done today" he said when the court held that Guantanamo detainees have the right to appeal their captivity to federal courts. "Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the Constitution?" he said, under obvious circumstances. "Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda" he said, in attempting to retain a law that criminalized same-sex relationships in Texas.
    - wavefunction 13y ago
      I thought about saying something very rude to you about me being entitled to my opinion, but I won't.
dekhn 13y ago
cDNA occurs in nature (reverse transcriptase). In fact DNA intermediates with introns spliced can be reintegrated into the genome. Further, faulty viruses can acquire oncogenes (intron-splicted, mtuated versions of growth factors, like EGF and HER2/neu) and transfer them to other cells via cDNA intermediates. It's not hard to believe that nature has in fact passed BRCA cDNAs around via retroviral intermediates.
- dnautics 13y ago
  RT doesn't work that way, it requires a specific site near its target gene in order to make the DNA strand. There is off-target activity, but it is almost certainly vanishingly rare.
  - dekhn 13y ago
    "almost certainly vanishingly rare event" * "incredibly high rate of reproduction of viruses" = almost certainty. See the first 4 chapters of "Biology of Cancer" by Weinberg.
    - dnautics 13y ago
      molecular biology can deal with probabilities that are lower than 1/the number of particles in the universe.
      - dekhn 13y ago
        again, have you read "The Biology of Cancer", by Weinberg? There is strong evidence for what I'm saying.
        dekhn 13y ago
        Further, I'm not sure what the relationship of probabilities to the number of particles in the universe is. The probability of any given sequence emitted by hmmer as the "highest probability" is tiny (often 10e-50 or better, and for very good matches, 10e-138). So what's your point?
1337biz 13y ago
I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief. I wish more public officials would show this kind of honesty, esp. those voting on new laws and regulations. I am waiting for the first politician to come foward with a "I have no idea of this stuff, can anyone of my constituents explain to me how and why to vote on that" message.
- takluyver 13y ago
  > I am waiting for the first politician to come foward with a "I have no idea of this stuff, can anyone of my constituents explain to me how and why to vote on that" message. I suspect all too many of their constituents would be very happy to explain how they should vote on all sorts of matters. Getting peoples' opinions is the easy bit, working out which ones are worth listening to is the challenge. Maybe we should just go with the most prevalent opinion on any issue. But, besides the practical issues, we can all probably think of at least one issue where we think the majority of people have got it wrong. We'd like our reasons to be considered, not just our numbers.
- davidp 13y ago
  > "I have no idea of this stuff, can anyone of my constituents explain to me how and why to vote on that" That is precisely the primary function of lobbyists, as distasteful as it sounds when that word is used. Many lobbyists also buy access, which is a separate problem. Can you imagine the disastrous mess Congress would create if they knew even _less_ than they already know about the areas they're legislating? This is why regulating lobbying is hard; at root it's just citizens speaking to elected leaders (again, until money gets involved).

unmei 13y ago

But they surely don't have a patent on all cDNA synthesis techniques, especially given that that is a highly generic technique (it should fall under the "obvious from previous art" criteria). So other companies should be able to utilize a cDNA as well so long as they don't simply follow the Myriad protocol?

jweese 13y ago
I believe they just have a patent on these particular cDNA types, namely cDNA created from BRCA1 or BRCA2, and not on the well-known lab techniques for creating them.
- daughart 13y ago
  I believe you are correct here.
mpyne 13y ago
I don't know the details, I only browsed through the front matter/syllabus, and I've certainly not read the patent in question.
tomku 13y ago
Their patent isn't on technique ("method" in the ruling), but on the actual cDNA sequence itself. As such, it's specific to the two BRCA genes. Of course, that just makes it even more ridiculous.
- unmei 13y ago
  I guess my question is, do they still have a patent on any BRCA1/2 cDNA or only that specifically created according to their method?
  - tomku 13y ago
    According to the ruling, their patent specifies a sequence of nucleotides of cDNA independent of any method used to create them. I read that to mean that any BRCA1 or BRCA2 cDNA that matches that exact sequence would be infringing on Myriad's patent, regardless of how it was created.

tocomment 13y ago

But there are ways of detecting BRCA mutations without cDNA right? What does 23andme use? Isn't that a chip based method? And straight genome sequencing which should be cheap enough in a few years is another way around it, no?

dnautics 13y ago

yeah, but no one uses cDNA synthesis to do genotyping anymore. They use genechips or direct sequencincg. Direct sequencing is NOT covered by the myriad patent; and genechips use such short DNA sequences that the 'intron' exception doesn't hold.