A technician loads patient samples into a machine for testing at Myriad Genetics in Salt Lake City in 2002. The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Myriad cannot patent the BRCA genes, which are tested to check a woman's risk for breast and ovarian cancer.

A technician loads patient samples into a machine for testing at Myriad Genetics in Salt Lake City in 2002. The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Myriad cannot patent the BRCA genes, which are tested to check a woman's risk for breast and ovarian cancer.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that human genes cannot be patented, upending 30 years of patent awards granted by the U.S. Patent Office. The court's unanimous decision has enormous implications for the future of personalized medicine and in many ways is likely to shape the future of science and technology.

Myriad Genetics, one of the nation's biotech leaders, isolated two genes with mutations that can indicate a high risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The company patented the genes, known as BRCA 1 and BRCA 2, and developed a test so that women with family or previous cancer histories could see if they had the mutations.

But the patent meant that other researchers could not use the isolated genes to develop potentially more reliable and cheaper tests. A group of doctors, patients and researchers went to court to challenge Myriad's patent, and on Thursday they won a prtial victory.

The Supreme Court, while acknowledging the importance of Myriad's discovery, said that Myriad did not create anything by isolating the two BRCA genes and that the genes are a product of nature.

"The location and order of the nucleotides existed in nature before Myriad found them. Nor did Myriad create or alter the genetic structure of DNA," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court. "To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act or invention."

Those who are critical of Myriad note that the patent meant that there were no second opinion available.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., experienced that limitation firsthand. At age 41, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Because of her family history, she took the BRCA test and found she had the mutation. Doctors told her there was no second test, so with no other choice she had both breasts and both ovaries removed. With the Supreme Court ruling, she says, women in her position should have more tests available to them.

"This decision allows women to get an independent test repeated so that they can make a decision with a lot more information than the results of one test," she tells NPR.

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