History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Tupasela, Aaro
University of Helsinki
Department of Sociology
Helsinki, Finland - aaro.tupasela@helsinki.fi
From world heritage to proprietary asset: transforming tissues from public resource to private property
The recent development of biobanks as a global phenomenon has raised important questions relating to the legal status that they occupy in terms of ownership issues. Collections of human tissues have become an important source of biomedical information and as such the status of different collections in different locations has become an important nexus around which relations between different actors are expressed. This is especially important considering the increasing capital values that are associated with biomedical research.
This paper examines the way in which tissue collections are seen both as a public resource that is considered a part of a common world heritage and at the same time a proprietary asset with a clear ownership status. Using a Finnish case example where tissues were transformed from a public resource to a private commodity, the paper explores the process by which tissues that are considered to have a custodial status are transformed into a proprietary asset with a clear legal standing. The process involves a multitude of important regulatory corpuses that have recently developed around the biomedical use of human tissue collections. This transformative process is a critical junction at which tissues assume new forms of value. The paper draws on the notions of tissue economy and biovalue (Waldby 2002) to explore this process and explain its significance in developing commercial markets in biomedical research.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006