Moore v. The Regents of the University of California: An Ethical Debate on Informed Consent and Property Rights in a Patient's Cells
![handle is hein.journals/jpatos77 and id is 637 raw text is: Moore v. The Regents of the
University of California: An Ethical
Debate on Informed Consent and
Property Rights in a Patient's Cells
Judith B. Prowda*
INTRODUCTION
A dvances in biotechnology' over the past several years have resulted
in many scientific and medical breakthroughs, including the pos-
sibility of deriving new medicines from human tissues and cells.2 This
rapid progress has created unique challenges for the American legal
system because scientific discoveries do not always fit neatly within
established jurisprudence.' Harvard Constitutional Law Professor
* Judith B. Prowda, Research Fellow, Engelberg Center for Property and Innovation Law, New
York University School of Law; Sarah Lawrence College (A.B.), Middlebury College (M.A. French
Language and Literature),The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies
(M.A. International Relations), Fordham University School of Law (J.D.), New York University
School of Law (LL.M.) Trade Regulation). The author gratefully acknowledges the valuable com-
ments to earlier drafts of this article by Professor Nancy Neveloff Dubler, Director of the Division
of Bioethics, Montefiore Medical Center, Professor, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Professor
Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss, New York University School of Law; and Subhash C. Gulati, M.D.,
Ph.D., Director, Clinical Research and Stem Cell Transplantation, Division of Hematology-Oncol-
ogy, The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.
1 Biotechnology is defined as any technique that uses living organisms (or parts of organisms)
to make or modify products, to improve plants or animals, or to develop microorganisms for special
uses. Commercial Biotechnology: An International Analysis, U.S. Congress, Office of Technology
Assessment, OTA-BA-218 at 3 (1984).
2 Unless otherwise specified, the term tissues and cells will be used in the most general sense,
to include organs, bone marrow, blood cells, human tissue, bodily fluids, etc. Cells are the basic
structure and functional unit of all living organisms, and carry within their nuclei an individual's
unique genetic information in DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) macro molecules. Moore v. The Re-
gents of the University of California, 51 Cal. 3d 120, 124, 793 P.2d 479, 483, 271 Cal. Rptr. 146
(1990), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 936, 111 S. Ct. 1388 (1991). Also see U.S. Congress, Office of.
Technology Assessment, New Developments in Biotechnology: Ownership of Human Tissues and
Cells-Special Report, OTA-BA-337 at 31 (1987) (hereinafter OTA Special Report).
3 When Science Outruns Law, Washington Post, Op-Ed, July 13, 1990, at A 20, col 1. (Cal-
ifornia's Supreme Court [in Moore] has just offered a compelling reminder of the promise of
biotechnology-and of the obsolescence of the law that now governs it.); Also see Jeffrey A.
Potts, Moore v. Regents of the University of California: Expanded Disclosure, Limited Property
Rights, 86 Nw. U. L. Rev. 453 (1992).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jpatos77&div=90&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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