RISK FOR LEGACY (BIG SCIENTIFIC QUESTIONS)

The tremendous hopes that have been put in genetic research are not only scientific, they are also for a large part economic. Therefore, a business vs. science conflict around genes was unavoidable. For Europe, it begun in January 2001.The European Patent Office recorded the patent of Myriad Genetics, an American company, a genetic test to detect predispositions for breast or ovary cancer. In the same breath, this biotechnological decreed the exclusive control of its test. In one go, the detection of European illnesses and the research linked to this gene, were threatened
to end up under American control. The European reaction organizes itself. The battles between laboratories are scientific, juridic and political. This film offers to put the relationship between the researcher Dominique Stoppa-Lyonnet and his patients at the centre of this battle, beginning with the planning of the counter-attack of European laboratories, and especially the Curie Institute.This work is the continuation of an investigation led by Caroline Tourbe that was first made for the scientific and technical magazine Archimède, that Arte co-produces with Aune Production (Pierre Oscar Levy) and benefited of the Archimède recordings of Denis Gheerbrant, Nicolas Baulieu and François Basset.