WILL genomics pioneer Craig Venter be the next Bill Gates, enjoying a Microsoft-like grip on a future industry based on synthetic forms of life? That was the claim of an advocacy group concerned about the social implications of technologies earlier this year, after Venter鈥檚 institute applied for a patent on a synthetic 鈥渕inimal genome鈥� (快猫短视频, 16 June, p 13).
Now the Ottawa-based ETC Group is raising the alarm again. In the past few weeks, two patent applications by scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute were published. These cover methods for and for into natural or artificial cells. If granted with all their claims intact, the patents would give rights to a broad sweep of techniques in synthetic biology 鈥� an emerging field that aims to build biological devices constructed in part from chemically synthesised DNA.
鈥淭he patents would grant rights to synthetic biology鈥檚 basic techniques鈥�
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鈥淚f鈥� is the key word, however. George Church, a synthetic biologist at Harvard University, believes that many of the claims will be rejected on the grounds of 鈥渙bviousness鈥�. And it remains to be seen whether some of the methods described for getting synthetic DNA into cells will actually work. 鈥淭his is a case of using the patent system as a type of futures market to take out options,鈥� suggests Paul Oldham of the Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics at Lancaster University, UK.
The Venter Institute did not reply to requests for a comment.
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