A new war is raging across the globe today, a major legal and scientific battle over one simple question: should individuals and corporations be allowed to patent genes? The human genome is a genetic whirlpool of twenty thousand genes. But many don’t realize that fully four thousand of these are the property of a corporation. While biotech companies argue that patents on human genes reward successful medical researchers and promote the investigation of life saving treatments, others see it very differently. Is gene-patenting the key to decoding life-saving medical information or a capitalist land-grab driven by greed?

In Body Corporate, reporter Andrew Fowler travels through the United States and Australia to hear from both sides in this high-stakes controversy. Can the basis of life itself truly be patented and sold? If our unique genes can be patented, could they later be franchised out to a major corporation? The film raises these questions and profiles the companies that are gearing up to battle all the way to the Supreme Court to protect their multimillion dollar investments.


Featuring interviews with:

Professor John Shine, Executive Director of Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research and Professor of Medicine and Molecular Biology, University of New South Wales

Dr. Mark Skolnick, founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Myriad Genetics

Dr. Sean Grimmond, Professor of Genomics, Institute of Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Australia

Dr. Wendy K. Chung, human geneticist and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Columbia University