Beginning in 1995, in a genetics lab at the University of Pennsylvania, Haig Kazazian and his colleague Arupa Ganguly tested roughly 500 women per year for the breast-cancer-predicting genes BRCA1 and BRCA2. In 1999, they received a “cease and desist” letter from Myriad Genetics, which had successfully patented the genes in 1998. In 2008, Kazazian and Ganguly became the first plaintiffs in the ACLU’s case against Myriad and the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Kazazian is now a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Institute of Genetic Medicine. He holds a gene patent of his own, but believes gene patenting should be limited to particular circumstances.
**********Interviews with Dr. Kazazian can be arranged by contacting Catherine Kolf at [email protected] or 443-287-2251.
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