Editing Craig Venter (section)

===EST controversy===
While an employee of the [[National Institutes of Health|NIH]], Venter learned how to identify [[Messenger RNA|mRNA]] and began to learn more about those expressed in the human brain. The short [[Complementary DNA|cDNA]] sequence fragments Venter discovered by automated [[DNA sequencing]], he named [[expressed sequence tag]]s, or ESTs. The [[NIH Office of Technology Transfer]] decided to file a patent on the ESTs discovered by Venter, [[Biological patents in the United States|patenting the genes]] identified based on studies of [[Messenger RNA|mRNA]] expression in the human brain. When Venter disclosed the NIH strategy during a Congressional hearing, a firestorm of controversy erupted.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Roberts | first = Leslie | s2cid = 32742062 | date = October 11, 1991 | title = Genome patent fight erupts: an NIH plan to patent thousands of random DNA sequences will discourage industrial investment and undercut the Genome Project itself, the plan's critics charge | journal = [[Science (journal)|Science]] | volume = 254 | issue = 5029 | pages = 184–186 | doi = 10.1126/science.1925568| pmid = 1925568 |bibcode = 1991Sci...254..184R }}</ref> The NIH later stopped the effort and abandoned the patent applications it had filed, following public outcry.<ref>{{Cite journal | date = 2006 | journal = [[Harvard Law Review]] | volume = 119 | title = Patent Law – Utility – Federal Circuit holds that expressed sequence tags lack substantial and specific utility unless underlying gene function is identified. ''In re Fisher'', 421 F.3d 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2005) | issue = 8 | pages = 2604–2611 | url = http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/119/june06/recent_cases/in_re_fisher.pdf | access-date = November 17, 2008 | archive-date = March 25, 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090325142418/http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/119/june06/recent_cases/in_re_fisher.pdf | url-status = dead }}</ref>