University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law Professor Jorge Contreras‘ forthcoming book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA, was just featured by The New York Times as one of the 11 new works of nonfiction to read this season.
The Times said: “The ACLU had never before filed a patent case when a policy analyst and civil rights lawyer teamed up in 2005 to challenge a decades-long practice allowing private companies to patent naturally occurring human genes. Jorge L. Contreras, a law professor at the University of Utah, interviewed nearly 100 lawyers, patients, scientists and policymakers in this behind-the-scenes history of Molecular Pathology vs. Myriad Genetics, a long-shot lawsuit that culminated in a landmark 2013 Supreme Court decision that opened the human genome to the benefit of researchers, cancer patients and everyday Americans.” The Genome Defense will be issued by Algonquin on October 26.
Contreras will be featured in a virtual book talk at Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center on October 20.