Moore 10 Years Later - Still Trying to Fill the Gap: Creating a Personal Property Right in Genetic Material
![handle is hein.journals/newlr32 and id is 1143 raw text is: NOTE
Moore 10 Years Later-Still Trying to
Fill the Gap: Creating a Personal
Property Right in Genetic Material'
[Y]et every man has a property in his own person.2
[T]he people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to
reform or change their government, whenever it be found adverse or
inadequate to the purposes of its institution.'
I. INTRODUCTION
Before there were biotech-companies, recombinant DNA, or Western
Blots,4 the only interest in the body was the interest in the dead
1. See generally Mary T. Danforth, Cells, Sales, and Royalties: The Patient's
Right to a Portion of the Profits, 6 YALE L. & POL'Y REV. 179 (1988). The seminal
article, written ten years ago, was the first to note the possible problems which could
arise out of John Moore's dilemma.
2. JOHN LOCKE, SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT 19 (C.B. Macpherson ed.,
Hackett Publishing 1980) (1690). John Locke was speaking of the labor had in the
person, stating that the work wrought by him was his own property. See id.
3. 1 THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS: THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THOMAS JEF-
FERSON AND JAMES MADISON 1776-1826, at 622 (James Morton Smith ed., 1995).
The quote was written in a letter by James Madison to Thomas Jefferson as part of
Madison's original draft for the Bill of Rights. See id.
4. Recombinant DNA is defined as [a] broad range of techniques involving the
manipulation of the genetic material of organisms; . . . also used to describe a DNA
molecule constructed by genetic engineering techniques and composed of DNA from
different individuals or species. U.S. CONGRESS, OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESS-
MENT, NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN BIOTECHNOLOGY: OWNERSHIP OF HUMAN TISSUES AND
CELLS 158 (1987) [hereinafter OTA REPORT].
Western blotting is a technique used in gene manipulation. See R.W. OLD &
S.B. PRIMROSE, PRINCIPLES OF GENE MANIPULATION: AN INTRODUCTION TO GENETIC
ENGINEERING 10 (N.G. Carr et al. eds., 4th ed., Blackwell Scientific Publications
1989). The process involves the transfer of... protein bands from a . . . gel onto
a membrane . . . , to which they bind strongly. Id. (citations omitted). After the
proteins are bound to the membrane, the proteins are then available for analysis by
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Moore 10 Years Later - Still Trying to Fill the Gap: Creating a Personal Property Right in Genetic Material
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