Science&Health: Symposium to visit the “˜genetic marketplace’

With increasing advancements in research into the human genome,
a group of experts will meet at UCLA this weekend to discuss the
benefits and problems arising from the interaction between genetic
research and industry.

Speakers at the symposium, which is being hosted by the UCLA
Center for Society and Genetics and titled “The Genetic
Marketplace: A Citizen’s Guide to the Genomic Bazaar”
include a former U.S. Surgeon General, a legal expert, professors
and a genetic testing expert.

“We brought together a group of experts from around the
country to begin to look at how we’re taking genomic
materials and turning them into commodities,” said Edward
McCabe, co-director of the UCLA Center for Society and Genetics and
executive chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the UCLA David
Geffen School of Medicine.

According to McCabe, genomic medicine will be predictive,
preventive and personalized.

Patients’ genomes will be sequenced and this information
will be used to determine which diseases they are prone to have, so
lifestyle changes and medications can then be prescribed.

“Rather than treating everybody with the same medication
and the same dose, we can look at genes to see if someone is
susceptible to side effects or not so we can personalize the
medicine to that individual,” McCabe said.

One of several topics that will be discussed is gene
patenting.

For instance, some companies hold patents on a portion of the
genes that make up the human genome, and as a result of those
licensing fees, the cost of sequencing an individual’s genome
is increased.

Additionally, Norton Wise, co-director of the UCLA Center for
Society and Genetics, plans to discuss the politicization and
commercialization of scientific research.

“I and many other people are concerned about university
research and that it’s becoming bound up with
commercialization,” Wise said.

“The commercialization may direct research into areas that
are potentially profitable and not necessarily in the direction of
public interest.”

New institutes of oversight protecting public interests are
needed to resolve this issue as well as the politicization of
research. The institutes should be the product of academic,
industrial and governmental collaborations, Wise added.

To illustrate the importance of keeping commercialization out of
research, Wise cited an example of an experimental result which
asserted that people taking aspirin for conditions such as heart
disease were developing a resistance to aspirin.

The study suggested that these people should take another drug,
Plavix, instead.

The public was not told that this research project was funded by
Plavix. Among the people who objected to the research findings,
some were found to be funded by Bayer, a company which produces
aspirin.

“Is there not any neutral source from which you can find
trustworthy knowledge?” Wise said. “We need to have
some way of judging when the results are the results that represent
the public interest. There is an immense promise of development of
research and technology that we need to preserve the public
interest.”

Other speakers at the symposium will address topics such as the
relationship between race and medicine as well as the positive
interactions that can arise between corporations and genetics.

The issue of who owns a person’s genes will be discussed
by Lori Andrews, a legal expert in genetic technologies.

“I decide who gets my money after I die. … There’s
something psychologically beneficial to me as a living person to
know I can give my money to whoever I want,” Andrews said in
a New York Times article in which she compares the right to decide
how one’s tissues are used to the ability to determine where
one’s money goes.

The UCLA Center for Society and Genetics was established in
2004. It is involved in research and education that is
interdisciplinary. This is the fifth public symposium hosted by the
center.