The UCLA Center for Society and Genetics
Fifth Annual Symposium:

The Genetic Marketplace
A Citizen’s Guide to the Genomic Bazaar

January 21, 2007
Grand Horizon Room, Sunset Conference Center
UCLA

Genes for Sale?
What happens when commercial values affect genetic research and medicine?

• Do we patent human genes and tissues?
• Are health disparities among groups exacerbated or diminished?
• Do pharmaceutical companies oversell race-based medicines?
• Might universities lose their autonomy from commerical or political interests?
• Do we diminish our humanity when we put a price-tag on our genes?

Who Owns Your Genes?

Streaming Video of Talk

Since passing her bar exam on the day Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby was born, Lori Andrews has become an internationally-recognized expert on biotechnologies. Her path-breaking litigation about reproductive and genetic technologies and the disposition of frozen embryos caused the National Law Journal to list her as one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.” She is also the author of a new novel, SEQUENCE, a genetics thriller.

Today, Professor Andrews is a distinguished professor of law at Chicago-Kent; Director of IIT’s Institute for Science, Law and Technology; and in Spring 2002, she was a visiting professor at Princeton University. She received her B.A. summa cum laude from Yale College and her J.D. from Yale Law School.

Professor Andrews has also been involved in setting policies for genetic technologies. She has been an advisor on genetic and reproductive technology to Congress, the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, the federal Department of Health and Human Services, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and several foreign nations including the emirate of Dubai and the French National Assembly. She served as chair of the federal Working Group on the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of the Human Genome Project.

Delivering the Genome:
The Role of Commercial Medicine

Streaming Video of Talk

Paul Billings is an internationally recognized authority on genetic testing and has published more than 130 scholarly articles in such publications as Journal of Experimental Medicine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, and the New England Journal of Medicine, and book chapters in addition to his book, DNA on Trial: Genetic Identification and Criminal Justice. He was also on the joint NIH/DOE (National Institutes of Health/U.S. Department of Energy) Task Force on Genetic Information and Insurance and has testified on many occasions to the United States Congress and to state legislatures on issues involving human genetics. His works and comments have appeared in such popular media outlets as the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wired and Los Angeles Times.

Prior to joining LabCorp, Dr. Billings was a Vice President for Life Sciences and Clinical Affairs for WIPRO, Ltd., via its subsidiary WIPRO HealthSciences. He has also recently acted as Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific and Medical Officer of Genesage, Inc. and as the Editor-In-Chief of GeneSage’s flagship publication, GeneLetter. In addition, Dr. Billings is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley and Principal Investigator on a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded project studying legal and policy precedents in genomic medicine with the Council for Responsible Genetics.

A Post-Genomic Surprise
The Molecular Reinscription of Race in
Clinical Genetics and Forensic Science
(With Some Social and Political Implications for
Identity and Identification)

Streaming Video of Talk

Troy Duster is the Silver Professor of Sociology at New York University, and he also holds the title of Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He is currently Director of the Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge at New York University, and is the former Director of the American Cultures Center and founding Director of the Institute for the Study of Social Change, both at the University of California, Berkeley.

He has been a Visiting Professor or Visiting Scholar at Stockholm University, the University of British Columbia, the London School of Economics, Williams College, the University of Melbourne, and Columbia University. He also was a member of the National Advisory Committee to the Human Genome Project (HGP), and served as a member, and later chaired the National Advisory Committee on Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in the HGP.

His books and monographs include The Legislation of Morality (1970), Aims and Control of the Universities (1974), Cultural Perspectives on Biological Knowledge (co-edited with Karen Garret, 1984), Backdoor to Eugenics (2003, 2nd Edition), and (co-author of) Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Colorblind Society (2003). He is also the author of numerous articles on theory and methods published in the American Sociologist, Temps Moderne, and Politics and the Life Sciences.

Health Disparities in the Age of Genomics

Streaming Video of Talk

Dr. Satcher served simultaneously in the positions of Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health from February 1998 through January 2001. He also held the posts of Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry from 1993 to 1998.

Upon his departure from the post of Surgeon General, Dr. Satcher became a fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation. In the fall of 2002, he assumed the post of director of the National Center for Primary Care at the Morehouse School of Medicine. Before joining the Administration, he was President of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1982 to 1993.

Dr. Satcher served as professor and Chairman of the Department of Community Medicine and Family Practice at Morehouse School of Medicine from 1979 to 1982. He is a former faculty member of the UCLA School of Medicine and Public Health and the King-Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he developed and chaired the King-Drew Department of Family Medicine. From 1977 to 1979, he served as the Interim Dean of the Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School, during which time, he negotiated the agreement with UCLA School of Medicine and the Board of Regents that led to a medical education program at King-Drew. He also directed the King-Drew Sickle Cell Research Center for six years.

Thoughts on Politicization of Science through Commericialization

Streaming Video of Talk

Norton Wise joined the rapidly developing field of history of science at UCLA three years ago. He works on topics from the late 18th century to the present, specializing in the history of physics and paying particular attention to the relations between science and industrialization. With Crosbie Smith, he wrote Energy and Empire: A Biographical study of Lord Kelvin, which shows how the great transformation of physics in the mid-nineteenth century–yielding thermodynamics, electromagnetic theory, and the theory of vortex atoms–grew up together with the problems of steam engines, telegraph cables, and vortex turbines.

His series on “Work and Waste: Political Economy and Natural Philosophy in 19th Century Britain” developed the point further to show how the steam engine functioned as an active mediator between industrial and scientific interests, with the “work done” by the engine measuring both “labor value” in economics and “energy” in physics. On a much broader scale the volume he edited on The Values of Precision developed the theme that the blossoming of precision measurement from the late 18th century through the 19th expressed the values and requirements of states attempting to centralize their control and of traders seeking to extend their reach over larger areas.

More recently Wise contributes to the historiographical development of “cultural history of science”, exploring the ways in which major scientific developments emerge from intensely local and contingent circumstances.

Gibbons, Sally. “Genetic research shouldn’t be tainted by private interests.” UCLA Today 2007 February 6; 27:9: 2.

Bissell, Amber. “Design your own disability?” UCLA Daily Bruin 2007 January 25; 7. SITE

Mishory, Jennifer. “Research must be transparent, unbiased.” UCLA Daily Bruin 2007 January 22; 1,5. SITE

Guner, Joie. “Symposium to visit the ‘genetic marketplace.’” UCLA Daily Bruin 2007 January 19; 1,3. SITE