Tag: Jacob S. Sherkow

Professor Jacob Sherkow is a co-author on a new paper published by the National Academy of Medicine examining the rise of telehealth and the digital transformation of healthcare. The discussion paper is part of a new NAM Perspectives series explores emerging science and technology applications in order to better understand, anticipate, and develop governance for future development, with special attention to their potential societal, ethical, legal, and health-related impacts. Sherkow’s article examines the roles of state, federal, and regional regulations, as well as governance challenges in an increasingly online and interconnected living environment.

Read the full paper from the National Academy of Medicine.

Professor Jacob Sherkow travelled to Cologne, Germany, in September to deliver a lecture as part of the CMMC Symposium in Molecular Medicine. The Symposium was titled “From Concepts to Clinic: a New Era of Nucleic Acid Therapeutics,” and aimed to provide attendees with an in-depth understanding of the chemical, biological and clinical challenges in the field. Sherkow presented a speech titled “Nucleic Acid Platforms: US and EU regulatory challenges,” which was part of the preclinical and clinical application portion of the proceedings.

Writing with fellow patent experts, Professors Bernard Chao and Timothy Holbrook of the University of Denver School of Law and Professor Mark A. Lemley of Stanford Law School, Professor Jacob Sherkow submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The brief is written in response to the decision made by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in a case involving Xencor Inc. In their previous decision, PTAB rejected a patent claim from Xencor, a decision Sherkow and his co-authors describe as “wrong on the law and wrong on the science.” The amicus brief supports Xencor’s claim and encourages the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to reverse the decision from PTAB. 

Read the full amicus brief here.

The Earth BioGenome Project has an ambitious plan to sequence a genome from every plant, animal, and fungus on the planet, as well as from many single-celled organisms, such as algae. As detailed in the New Yorker, the project faces a formidable foe in their quest to save the valuable genetic information encoded in each genome: ongoing mass extinction. A less ominous but still serious threat to the project is the question of ownership over DNA sequences, which Professor Jacob Sherkow spoke about in the article. “What’s best for science? What’s best for the world? What’s best for the particular country that we’re taking samples from?”: Sherkow listed these as examples the project must answer and find balance within.

Read the full article on the New Yorker website.

Her cells are “immortal,” and so, it seems, is the legal battle over ownership of those cells. In an article about a recently settled lawsuit brought by the family of Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose cells were used without her knowledge or consent in research that helped develop treatments for many diseases, the New York Times quoted Professor Jacob Sherkow on the legal questions at the center of the case. The case revolved around the assumption that Lacks owned her body and any cells from it, but the property laws over cells are not as clear. “People think that because they have autonomy over their physical body, that means they have a, quote, property interest in it. That is just bluntly wrong,”  Sherkow said, contradicting what might be considered common understanding.

Read more of Sherkow’s quotes about the Lacks case from the New York Times.

Professor Jacob Sherkow has co-authored a paper, “Regulating Direct-to-Consumer Polygenic Risk Scores,” that was published in JAMA. In the paper, the authors argue that polygenic risk scores, which are used to predict risk factors for particular conditions using genetic data, require better government regulation. 

Read the full paper at jamanetwork.com.

More from Sherkow on polygenic risk scores at igb.illinois.edu.