The row broke out a fortnight ago when South African researchers complained that the University of Maryland in the US had patented gene mutations collected from Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan and South Africa.
The application, filed in 2007 and published last year, records Prof Sarah Tishkoff – then with the University of Maryland – and Floyd Allan Reed as the inventors and sole applicants. When contacted by the Nation, Dr Tishkoff said the application was not made for any commercial gains but to protect the invention from intellectual property prospectors.
In Kenya, the study was carried out in 26 sites, in the Rift Valley, Eastern, Central
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