首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The Roslin Institute announced last week that it had applied to patent the method by which its scientists had cloned Dolly the s
The Roslin Institute announced last week that it had applied to patent the method by which its scientists had cloned Dolly the s
admin
2010-07-19
25
问题
The Roslin Institute announced last week that it had applied to patent the method by which its scientists had cloned Dolly the sheep. The patent, if granted, would apply to "nuclear transfer technology" in both human and animal cells. One point of the patent is to help fund research into cures for diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart failure.
Its other aim is to make some money. Last May, the Roslin Institute was taken over by Geron, an American biotech company. Geron has committed $32.5 million to research at the Roslin. It wants to get its money back. Two scientists from Stanford who developed the use of restriction enzymes, one of the fundamental techniques in biotechnology, made about pounds 80 million out of it in the 17 years before the patent expired. So you can see why Geron-Roslin is so keen to get its patent. There’s nothing wrong with that. Without the prospect of a return at the end of investment, no one would ever lend money to anyone involved in bio-medical research—and given the huge sums now required to develop a new drug, or a new diagnostic test for some medical condition, that would mean there wouldn’t be any research. It is wonderful when people give money to worthwhile causes with no hope of personal gain. But appealing to altruism simply won’t raise the billions required to develop and market drugs and therapies that rely on biotechnology. For that, you have to appeal to investors’ self-interest—which is why the bulk of medical research is funded not by charities or even tax-payers but by private companies and individuals.
The fact that biotech research depends on patents generates profound hostility. The opposition to the patenting of genetic sequences, cells, tissues and clones—critics call it "the privatization of nature"—takes many forms, from a Luddite desire to stop scientific research to a genuine, if mistaken, conviction that common ownership is always morally preferable to private property. But all of the objections have a single root. the sense that it must be wrong to make money out of the constituents of the human body. They cannot be "owned" by any individual, because they belong to everyone. There cannot be "property in people".
That is a profound mistake. The truth is rather the opposite: there is only property in things because there is property in people. People own their own bodies, and that ownership is the basis of their property rights (and most other individual rights, come to that). The problem with the law as it stands is that it doesn’t sufficiently recognize an individual’s property rights over his or her own body, and his or her entitlement to make money out of it.
The outcome of a lawsuit in the US nearly 10 years ago defined the de facto rules governing the ownership of human tissues, and the financial exploitation of the discoveries that derive from them. In Moorev the Regents of UCLA the issue was whether an individual was entitled to a share of the profits that a biotech company made from developing drugs or treatments derived from cells that came from his body. Dr David Golde had discovered that John Moore, one of his patients, had a pancreas whose cells had some unusual properties that might be helpful in treating a form of cancer. In his laboratory, Golde developed what his called a "cell line" from Moore’s cells and patented it. When Moore found out, he sued Dr Golde for a share of whatever profits the cell line generated.
Mr. Moore lost. The court said he had no right to any of those profits, because he did not own the cells removed from his body. Moreover, the court held that since "research on human cells plays a critical role in medical research", granting property rights to the patient from whom the cells came threatened to "hinder research by restricting access to the raw materials".
In essence, that decision said that biotech companies could own and make money out of human cells and tissue—but the person from whom that tissue or cells came could not. The logic behind that decision is bizarre. No one except the most unreconstructed communist disputes that I own my own body. Indeed, it is only because I own my body that I can come to own anything else independent of it, mixing my labor with something being the most fundamental means by which I can come to own it. If cells from Mr. Moore’s body are his property, how can anyone else come to own them—unless he sells or gives those cells to them? (778 words)
Why does the author mention the Stanford scientists in the second paragraph?
选项
A、To compare hard work done by Roslin Institute to that of the two Stanford scientists.
B、To prove that scientific research can make money be the patent.
C、To suggest that why Geron-Roslin is keen to get its patent.
D、To underline that Geron company is money-oriented.
答案
C
解析
作者在此段中引入斯坦福大学两名教授的例子,是想说明一项专利技术可以赢得很多的利润,这就是为什么Greon-Roslin公司那么迫切地申请专利权了。斯坦福大学的两位教授申请技术专利后的17年中赚了8千万英磅。见第二段原文。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/wt3YFFFM
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Itissimpleenoughtosaythatsincebookshaveclasses-fiction,biography,poetry-weshouldseparatethemandtakefromeachw
ThethirdparagraphexaminesAmerica’sfuture-mindednessfromthe______perspective.Theword"pooh-pooh"inthesixthparagr
______isgenerallydefinedasthestudyofmeaningandusuallypaysattentiontothestudyofmeaningoflinguisticunitsthems
ItcanbeinferredfromthefirstparagraphthatThereisaboomingmarketforfor-profituniversitiesbecause
ThePhilippinegovernmenthasbanned
InJuly1789,tenamendmentsaddedtotheAmericanconstitutionlimitingthepowersoffederalgovernmentandprotectingtherig
Insixteenth-centuryItalyandeighteenth-centuryFrance,waningprosperityandincreasingsocialunrestledtherulingfamilies
Cultureshockisapainfulexperiencewegothroughwhenweencountermanynewthingsinanothercountryandwe【1】______insom
OppositiontotheVietnamWarintheUnitedStatesdevelopedimmediatelyafterthebeginningofthewar,chieflyamongtradition
Anyonemakinglongdrivesthissummerwillnoticeanewdimensiontocontemporaryinequality:awideninggapbetweentheuserso
随机试题
上下:左右
方法
翼外肌功能亢进的病人可出现
女患者,28岁,停经50天,恶心呕吐10天,加重3天,食入即吐,呕吐酸苦水,胸胁满闷,头晕头胀,烦渴口苦,舌淡红,苔薄黄,脉弦滑,查尿妊娠试验阳性,中医辨证为
甲在国内拥有房屋一套,但其本人一直在国外居住。甲的邻居乙将该房占为已有,并将之分割为前后两部分,前面临街的一部分用作门面房从事餐馆经营,后边一部分则用来出租。以下说法正确的是:()
资产评估最基本的方法是()。
阅读下列材料,回答有关问题。传统的作业模式强调对知识的巩固,使学生通过“题海”战术达到预期目的。传统的作业是专制的、封闭的、独立的,是反复僵化的思维训练,易造成学生思维的疲惫和对知识的麻木。新课标中有这样一段表述:“习题有助于巩固已学知识,提高运用知识的
派出机关是指由县级以上地方人民政府经有权机关批准,在特定行政区划内设立的行使相当于一级人民政府管理职权的行政机关。根据上述定义,下面哪项属于派出机关的范畴?()
若已经声明了函数"intfun(intx,inty=0);",则下列重载函数声明中,正确的是
Themostpopulargameintheworld.Peopleplayitinwater.
最新回复
(
0
)