Excluded Subject Matter: Are U.K. Tribunals Taking an Unnecessarily Restrictive Approach in Biotechnology Cases?

THE SEQUENCING OF THE HUMAN GENOME, the first draft of which was ceremoniously announced by Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bill Clinton in 2000, was a landmark achievement. It paved the way for significant advances in the understanding of structural aspects of the genome, as well as more dynamic regulation of genes, proteins, and cells. This increase in fundamental academic knowledge has been matched by advances in translational research in the field. For instance, significant improvements have been seen in platform technologies, such as nucleic acid sequencing and assay miniaturisation, to name but two.