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PubMed2001

Human gene patents: core issues in a multi-layered debate.

After ten years of debate Directive 98/44/EG on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions was adopted in 1998. This directive takes decisions on some controversial bioethical and legal issues and offers the European biotech industries more space to develop their inventions, but leaves a number of philosophical and moral issues unresolved. This paper distinguishes between different layers in the debate and maps its modes of argumentation. Major philosophical, ethical and conceptual issues are located. It is argued that further analysis of these issues can help resolve further ethical and legal difficulties as regards patenting of human DNA. As the allegedly special status of genetic material remains unclear, the status of (human) DNA and its relation to the human body and personal identity should be further explored.

Bioethics↗

PubMed2001

Who "owns" cells and tissues?

Opposition to 'ownership' of cells and tissues often depends on arguments about the special or sacred nature of human bodies and other living things. Such arguments are not very helpful in dealing with the patenting of DNA fragments. Two arguments undergird support for patenting: the notion that an author has a 'right' to an invention resulting from his/her labor, and the utilitarian argument that patents are needed to support medical inventiveness. The labor theory of ownership rights is subject to critique, thought it may still have enduring value. The more important argument is that deriving from the common good. If patents on DNA are supported on the basis of their contributions to the common good, then they can also be limited based on considerations of the common good.

Biomedical Research↗

PubMed2003

Contributions of henrik lundegårdh.

Henrik Lundegårdh made major contributions in the field of ecology and plant physiology from 1912 to 1969. His early work at Hallands Väderö in the Kattegat pioneered quantitative approaches to plant ecology and laid the understanding of carbon dioxide exchange in natural communities which is still useful today in global carbon accounting. Very early on in this work he invented the flame photometer. In trying to understand salt respiration of plants, he started to formulate hypotheses for the relationship between respiration and ion movement, including protons, hypotheses that were forerunners to the Chemiosmotic Hypothesis of Peter Mitchell. Necessarily, this involved work on plant cytochromes. He invented several early recording spectrophotometers and made many early discoveries in the field of plant cytochromes, including the photo-oxidation of cytochrome f in photosynthesis.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2004

[Chronology of horseshoes found in Switzerland].

The horse was domesticated by a people in Central Asia. However, it is not known where and who invented horse shoeing, an invention that increased the possibilities for using horses. The word "horseshoe" was first mentioned in a document from 826 p.c. Up to now an archaeologist couldn't date an excavated horseshoe. I succeeded now to establish a chronology for horseshoes found in Switzerland. The first realisation is that in the course of more than thousand years of horse shoeing history three basic forms followed each other. Moreover, the existing horseshoes can be allocated to periodical types, each in use for approximately a quarter of a century.

Animal Husbandry↗

PubMed1998

Natural and artifactual kinds: are children realists or relativists about categories?

Research in cognitive development has highlighted important differences between conceptions of natural kinds and artifacts. One interpretation of the distinction is that natural kinds are categories one discovers, whereas artifactual kinds are invented. Four studies assessed whether children and adults saw categorization decisions as objective matters of fact or as invented conventions. Preschool-age children treated basic-level categories of animals and human-made artifacts as objective. At the superordinate level, kinds of animals were treated as more objective than were kinds of artifacts. In general, adults' judgments were similar to children's. Both children and adults have reliable and differentiated intuitions regarding category objectivity. The results from these studies are discussed in terms of their implications for structural and theory-based accounts of category naturalness.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Children's use of mental state information in selecting persuasive arguments.

Whether and when children use information about others' mental states to invent or select persuasive strategies were examined. In Study 1, preschoolers, 3rd-graders, and 6th-graders (ns = 11, 12, and 16, respectively; 17 girls) were told about story characters' persuading parents to buy pets or toys. Children were either given or not given information about story parents' beliefs and asked to invent or select appropriate arguments. Older children, but not preschoolers, used belief information to select arguments. Results were replicated in Study 2 (16 kindergartners, 16 3rd-graders; 19 girls). In Study 3, kindergartners and 1st-graders (N = 16; 6 girls) reasoned well on false-belief tasks but not on persuasion tasks, suggesting that failure to consider mental states in persuasion was not due to lack of a belief concept. Findings suggest that mental state understanding may continue to develop after the preschool years; methodological qualifications are also considered.

Child↗

PubMed2002

Adaptive categorization in unsupervised learning.

In 3 experiments, the authors provide evidence for a distinct category-invention process in unsupervised (discovery) learning and set forth a method for observing and investigating that process. In the 1st 2 experiments, the sequencing of unlabeled training instances strongly affected participants' ability to discover patterns (categories) across those instances. In the 3rd experiment, providing diagnostic labels helped participants discover categories and improved learning even for instance sequences that were unlearnable in the earlier experiments. These results are incompatible with models that assume that people learn by incrementally tracking correlations between individual features; instead, they suggest that learners in this study used expectation failure as a trigger to invent distinct categories to represent patterns in the stimuli. The results are explained in terms of J. R. Anderson's (1990, 1991) rational model of categorization, and extensions of this analysis for real-world learning are discussed.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed1982

Signs as pictures and signs as words: effect of language knowledge on memory for new vocabulary.

The role of sensory attributes in a vocabulary learning task was investigated for a non-oral language. Deaf and hearing individuals, more or less skilled in the use of sign language, were asked to learn the English meanings of 22 invented signs which followed the rules of formation for signs in American Sign Language. Each sign stimulus was highly similar in formation to another sign in the set. It was expected that skilled signers would be less affected by this formational similarity because of their greater familiarity with the linguistic structure of sign language. Furthermore, it was suggested that skilled signers would form a visual-linguistic code for the signs while unskilled signers would produce a code from general visual-pictorial processes. These representation differences were expected to lead to qualitatively different error patterns in response to sign similarity. All expectations were confirmed. Skilled signers encoded invented signs in terms of linguistic structure, while unskilled individuals approached the signs as visual-pictorial events. Although both codes are sensory, one reflects linguistic abstraction, and the other does not.

Deafness↗

PubMed2000

The power of a musical instrument: Franklin, the Mozarts, Mesmer, and the glass armonica.

In 1761 Benjamin Franklin invented the armonica (often referred to as the glass harmonica), an instrument designed to simplify the playing of the musical glasses. The instrument immediately became popular and inspired compositions by Wolfgang Mozart, who had the opportunity to hear and play one at the house of Franz Anton Mesmer. Armonica music was used by Mesmer in his séances, because he felt it could promote healing by propagating a mystical fluid that he called animal magnetism through the body. After Mesmer's theories were debunked by a highly respected panel of scientists, the armonica fell out of vogue. Because Franklin was on the panel that examined the discredited mesmerism, he indirectly contributed to his own invention's demise.

Equipment and Supplies↗

PubMed2000

Patent protection for protein structures and databases.

Patent protection is available for certain inventions in the field of structural genomics. A review of the patent application procedure is provided, and patentable aspects of protein structural information under US law are discussed. Strategic and international factors to consider when seeking patent protection for an invention also are presented.

Computational Biology↗

PubMed2005

[How to localize epigenetics in the landscape of biological research?].

Today, epigenetics is a very fashionable field of research. Modification of DNA by methylation, and of chromatin by histone modification or substitution represents a major fraction of the studies; but this special issue shows that epigenetic studies are very diverse, and not limited to the study of chromatin. What is common behind these different uses of the word epigenetics? A brief historical survey shows that epigenetics was invented twice, with different meanings: in the 1940s, by Conrad Waddington, as the study of the relations between the genotype and the phenotype; in the 1960s, as the global mechanisms of gene regulation involved in differentiation and development; what is common is that an approach distinct from genetics was in both cases considered as necessary because genetic models were incapable to address these problems. A good way to appreciate the relations between genetics and epigenetics is to realize that the main aim of organisms is to reproduce, and to consider the way organisms perform this task. Genetics is the precise means organisms have invented to reproduce the structure of their macromolecular components; the genome is also used to control the level and place of this reproduction. All the other means organisms have used to reproduce were more or less the result of tinkering, and constitute the field of epigenetics, with its diversity and richness.

Epigenesis, Genetic↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Opposition to Myriad Genetics patents and their total or partial revocation in Europe: early conclusions].

The proceedings instituted against three European patents held by the US company Myriad Genetics, on the BRCA1 gene and the breast cancer diagnosis gene, resulted in the total or partial revocation of these patents. These decisions put an end to the legal monopoly claimed by Myriad Genetics on the BRCA1 gene and on breast cancer gene tests, and left the field open to European geneticists to develop and implement their test methods within the framework of a clinical not-for-profit organization. The opposition procedure, through which any actor is allowed to challenge European patents, was used by geneticists doctors in Europe to refuse the emergence of an industrial monopoly on a medical service offered in a clinical context. The decision to revoke or strongly limit these patents was based on the European Patent Office's refusal to establish an invention priority on a sequence that had errors at the time the application was filed by the patent holder, in September 1994. The patent holder was granted an invention priority only on 24 March 1995, when it filed an application for a corrected sequence of the gene. But by then the BRCA1 gene sequence had already been divulged in a public data base, Genbank, from October 1994, notably by Myriad. Myriad Genetics' patents were thus victims of the patent race that prompted the firm to file multiple patent applications on insufficiently validated sequences, and of the conflict between diffusion in the public domain and the novelty requirement. Opposition to the patents, undertaken by a coalition of medical institutions, human genetic societies, two States, Holland and Austria, an environmental protection organization (Greenpeace), and the Swiss Labour Party, made it possible to preserve and develop the clinical economy of genetic tests in Europe. It resulted in amendments to intellectual property laws in France and thus extended the possibility of using compulsory licences for public health purposes to in vitro diagnosis.

Animals↗

PubMed2001

[Richard von Volkmann and the Surgical School of Halle in 1867 to 1889].

Richard von Volkmann (1830-1889) was appointed senior consultant of the University Surgical Hospital in Halle at the young age of 36. On returning home from the war of 1870/1871, he saw traumatic fever rampant in his hospital. He became a rigorous advocate of Lister's method of antisepsis. There were a large number of very serious accidents in the up-coming industrial town of Halle. Acute and chronic inflammation of the joint led to severe disfigurements. By invention of large reconstructive operations von Volkmann was able to obtain impressive results. He was the founder of traumatology and orthopaedic surgery. Tuberculosis was regarded at that time as the most common cause of death. By means of surgery certain forms of the illness could be cured. Tuberculous coxitis and gonarthritis were the most common indications for orthopaedic surgery. Von Volkmann used his distraction method for tuberculous spondylitis.Many terms used in medical practice derive from Richard von Volkmann. He described Volkmann's triangle, ischaemic muscle contractures and resorption fever. He developed a whole range of new methods of surgical procedures and the concept of wound drainage. His name is associated with Volkmann's splint, Volkmann's "sharp spoon" and several other inventions. Richard von Volkmann was one of the founders of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chirurgie (German Surgical Society). His famous Träumereien an französischen Kaminen ("Reveries at French Firesides"), an anthology of fairy-tales for his children, played an important role in his life's work.

General Surgery↗

PubMed1993

Development of the surgical stapling device.

Most surgeons who use staplers today attribute their invention to researchers who worked during the mid-fifties in the Soviet Union. While the modern staplers are derivates of those instruments, it also needs to be emphasized that they were preceded by stapling devices which were used extensively as early as the first decade of this century. The early history of surgical staplers is full of imaginative new ideas and technical solutions clearly identified as the instruments we use today were developed. The great men in Hungary and Germany who invented the early staplers should be remembered for their accomplishments.

Germany↗

PubMed1998

[History of diaphanoscopy. Pictures from the history of otorhinolaryngology, illustrated by instruments from the collection of the Ingolstadt German Medical History Museum].

BACKGROUND: In 1854 the Spanish singing teacher Manuel Garcia succeeded in inspecting his own larynx. In 1857 the neurologist Ludwig Türck in Vienna, without knowledge of Garcia's achievement, had been experimenting on laryngoscopy with his patients using a small mirror and sunlight. When in the winter of 1857-1858 he had to suspend his experiments for lack of sunlight, he lent his mirror to physiologist Johann Czermak in Budapest. Czermak, using artificial light reflected by a perforated mirror, developed modern laryngoscopy within a few weeks and made it a clinically valuable method. He described it in March 1858 as his own invention. This was the beginning of a an embittered fight with Türck about whose development had priority. DIAPHANOSCOPY OF THE LARYNX: During his very first studies on laryngoscopy Czermak noticed that the interior of the larynx could be inspected very well when the neck was illuminated by a strong light from without and the mirror was held in the dark pharynx. The tissue would then appear transilluminated in a glowing deep red. When sufficiently bright electric lamps became available in 1889, Rudolph Voltolini in Breslau, Germany, took up the transillumination of the larynx and even carried out some minor intralaryngeal operations using this method. Although suitable diaphanoscopes were soon on the market this technique was not widely adopted. It was ony used once in 1954 (Pellnitz et al.) for diagnosing early stages of laryngeal cancer. DIAPHANOSCOPY OF THE PARANASAL SINUSES: Voltolini in Breslau and Cozzolino in Naples experimented independently of each other with small electric lamps with the aim of finding new techniques of rhinoscopy. Both of them placed their lamp in the nasopharynx and performed anterior rhinoscopy using an ordinary speculum. However, it was only Voltolini who noticed the transillumination of the maxillary sinuses when the lamp was placed in the oral cavity. On October 29, 1888, in Breslau he demonstrated diaphanoscopy of the maxillary sinus for the first time. Cozzolino claimed that he had introduced this technique prior to Voltolini. Voltolini had died in 1889 and could not comment on this. A careful study of the original publications, however, shows that Cozzolino had only inspected the nasal cavity with retronasal illumination, but had not demonstrated the maxillary sinus by transillumination. The diaphanoscopy of the paranal sinuses was very soon elaborated to perfection: Vohse in 1890 applied it to the frontal sinuses, Gerber in 1900 invented a double diaphanoscope for examining both frontal sinuses simultaneously. Although the shortcomings of diaphanoscopy soon became apparent, the method was widely used for about half a century, but in the end could not compete with modern techniques of radiography and ultrasound. The history is related in detail and illustrated with numerous figures.

Germany↗

PubMed1986

[The history of glaucoma].

Glaucoma has been known in medicine since Antiquity. Hippokrates described "glaykoseis" as blindness which occurs in the elderly. The English ophthalmologist Banister was the first to establish the connection between increased tension of the eyeball and glaucoma. The important invention of the ophthalmoscope by von Helmholtz (1850) made it possible to diagnose glaucomatous changes in the fundus. In 1862, Donders discovered that high intraocular pressure caused blindness and called the disease "Glaukoma simplex." Further progress in the diagnosis of glaucoma was made by the invention of the tonometer and the perimeter, and the use of cocain. The first effective surgical treatment of glaucoma, an iridectomy, was carried out by von Graefe in 1856. Drug treatment started in 1875 with the discovery of pilocarpine.

Europe↗

PubMed1998

Stimulation of fracture healing by local application of humoral factors integrated in biodegradable implants.

Growth stimulation by growth hormones or by IGF-1 is well known whereas publications about stimulation of fracture healing with these substances are rare. One of the main effects of IGF-1 is angiopoiesis which consequently may be expected to induce and accelerate the soft tissue callus formation. BMP-2 is a stimulator for osteoclasts and osteoblasts and prepares the osseous reparation. RhBMPs, mostly BMP-2, are already used in the reconstruction of the cranial vault. The main disadvantage of these proteins is the quick inactivation after about 20-30 minutes. Local stimulation without systemic effects might be avoided by releasing a low but constant dose of IGF-1 or BMP. We speculate that the combination of a reasonable implant with an integrated drug release system may enlarge the field of application of biodegradable implants in the treatment of fractures. Such an implant might remarkably reduce the time for fracture healing and also lower the costs of postoperative treatment. In this paper we report our animal models in which we have tested constructive principles of biodegradable implants, we present the first clinical experiences with polyactates (PLLA) in the osteosynthesis of children, and we describe our inventions concerning drug releasing implants. 1) PLLA-implants a) The animal models We performed on oblique osteotomy of the right metacarpal bone in 48 juvenile calves and osteoplastic reconstructions of the cranial vault in 28 juvenile Göttinger minipigs. Biodegradable osteosynthesis with PLLA implants led to results as good as with conventional materials in both animal models, so that we proceeded to clinical evaluation in children. b) The clinical application in children 35 children, aged 6 weeks to 17 years, had resorbable osteosynthesis of their cranioplasties for correction of congenital malformations and posttraumatic reconstructions. The follow-up ranged from 5-15 years. 2) Invention of a drug-releasing system IGF-1 or BMP-2 is planned to be incapsulated by evaporation technique into nanospheres of low PDLLA (Poly-DL-Lactite) with a molecular weight of about 20,000 and an expected resorption time of 2-3 weeks (patent pending). 3) Concept of our drug-releasing resorbable implants Plates could be built up in multilayers of PDLLA sheets, separated by a spongiform matrix containing the IGF-1- or BMP-2-loaded nanospheres. The screws are hollow due to an internal driving system. The specially designed thread could also contain nanospheres, which would be brought into the cortical bone and the medullary space. The cavity of the screw is filled up with nanospheres after tightening.

Absorbable Implants↗

PubMed2006

The dynamics of Machiavellian intelligence.

The "Machiavellian intelligence" hypothesis (or the "social brain" hypothesis) posits that large brains and distinctive cognitive abilities of humans have evolved via intense social competition in which social competitors developed increasingly sophisticated "Machiavellian" strategies as a means to achieve higher social and reproductive success. Here we build a mathematical model aiming to explore this hypothesis. In the model, genes control brains which invent and learn strategies (memes) which are used by males to gain advantage in competition for mates. We show that the dynamics of intelligence has three distinct phases. During the dormant phase only newly invented memes are present in the population. During the cognitive explosion phase the population's meme count and the learning ability, cerebral capacity (controlling the number of different memes that the brain can learn and use), and Machiavellian fitness of individuals increase in a runaway fashion. During the saturation phase natural selection resulting from the costs of having large brains checks further increases in cognitive abilities. Overall, our results suggest that the mechanisms underlying the "Machiavellian intelligence" hypothesis can indeed result in the evolution of significant cognitive abilities on the time scale of 10 to 20 thousand generations. We show that cerebral capacity evolves faster and to a larger degree than learning ability. Our model suggests that there may be a tendency toward a reduction in cognitive abilities (driven by the costs of having a large brain) as the reproductive advantage of having a large brain decreases and the exposure to memes increases in modern societies.

Biological Evolution↗