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Italian Biotech Law Conference 2008

IBLC fourth edition deals with the impact of building a forensic oriented Italian DNA database.

Just for the curious, here is the programme:

Tuesday, Apr 8, 2008 – h 14,00/18,15
Palazzo delle Stelline Sala PORTA
Corso Magenta 61 – Milano (IT)

h. 14,00/14,15 – Registration

h. 14,15/14,30
Opening and welcome speech

Chairman
Leonardo Santi President
National Committee for Biosecurity, Biotechnology and Life Science – Council of Ministers

Moderator
Guido Romeo, Journalist, Nòva24 – IlSole24Ore

Discussant

h. 14,30/15,00
Personal DNA-based identification: from collection to sample analysys
Salvatore Pece
Researcher, IEO – Europea Institute of Oncology

h. 15,00/15,30
DNAbase Security: hardware and software infrastructures
Andrea Cocito, Campus IEO-IFOM

h. 15,30/16,00
Biobanks and Italian Biotech industry role
Leonardo Biondi, Biopolo S.c.r.l.

h. 16,00/16,30 – Coffee break

16.30/17.00
Case history: the National DNA Database in the UK
Stephen Firth, Firth Consulting

h 17.00/17.30
Myth and reality of DNA-based investigations
Andrea Monti,
Vice President, ALCEI – Electronic Frontiers Italy

h 17.30/18.00
“Of Crime and Gene”
Giovanni Boniolo, Professor of philosophy of Science, Università degli Studi di Padova – IFOM Milano

h. 18.00/18.10
Closing
Leonardo Santi

WHAT IS IBLC

IBLC stands for Italian Biotech Law Conference, the first Italian scientific conference dealing, from an interdisciplinary perspective, with life-science, information technology and law.

IBLC father is Andrea Monti, an Italian lawyer and legal scholar,researching, since more than 14 years, the field of ICT legal issues.

IBLC was born in 2004 as an Italian Cyberspace Law Conference; spinoff, with title Bioinformatics Research between IP protection and information free flow.

The discussant where dr. Marcella Attimonelli (associate professor of molecular biology at the University of Bari) and dr. Paolo Vezzoni (researcher at the National Research Council’s Institute of Biomedical Technologies).

IBLC second edition (2005) the title Protection of Biotech Assets, Market, Freedom of Research has been discussed by dr. Enrico Dainese (associate professor at Teramo University Comparative Biomedical Science Dept.), dr. Giampiero Di Plinio (professor of Public Comparative Law at the University of Chieti), dr. Piero Fariselli (researcher at the Department of Biology – University of Bologna), dr. Andrea Cocito (FIRC Foundation of Molecular Oncology’s bioinformatics group.)

Third edition (2007) has been possible with the invaluable help ho FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology and asked the question: Who owns bioinformation? (Possible) answers came from the following high profile scholars and researchers, managed by Giovanni Boniolo (conference chair – University of Padova, IT, Dept. of Philosophy): Pier Paolo Di Fiore – Andrea Cocito FIRC – IFOM, Luciano Floridi – Oxford University (UK), Giovanni Ziccardi – University of Milan, IT, Marco Ventura – University of Siena.

IFOM-FIRC and Biopolo sustained the fourth edition: Gen-ethics and BioBanks: between market and law enforcement profiling that obtained the endorsment of the National Committee for Biosecurity, Biotechnology and Life Science – Council of Ministers.

Past edition’s speakers talked about:

* What is bioinformatics (M. Attimonelli)

* Human genome variability: privacy and social-ethics issues (M. Attimonelli)

* Open source and bioinformatics software licensing (A. Cocito)

* Bioinformatics and protein structure analysys (E. Dainese)

* Biosequences analysys: database, technics and standard. A technical introduction for “the rest of us” (P. Fariselli)

* Open source, copyrights and bioinformatics (A. Monti)

* Genetic research, biotechnology, information access, economic applications (P. Vezzoni)

* How to build bioinformation (A.Cocito)

* What is bioinformation (L.Floridi)

* Semantic ambiguities, intellectual property, law (G.Ziccardi)

* Bioinformation and Public Policies (M.Ventura)

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School for Biotech Industrial Innovation Management 2008 is on

Prof. Marco Ventura‘s School for Biotech Industrial Innovation Management will start its Fourth Year on April 2008. The School is an initiative of the University of Siena, Italy, funded by the Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena in the framework of the Siena biotech pole.

Last year I have been invited to give a speech on “Copyright and Bioinformatics” and I had the chance to appreciate both audience and speaker “quality”. Marco Ventura’s initiative is really a unique place – in Italy – to learn about the interaction of two of the most complex (biotechnology) and confused (law) branch of human knowledge.

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A 40.000 Euros tax to get your data back (or, computer forensics’ hidden cost)

In Italy, whenever you ask for an official copy of a trial-related document you must pay a specific tax established by a Presidential Decree (Testo Unico sulle Spese di Giustizia).

So – as happened today during a computer forensics phase of a criminal trial – a client had to withdraw the request of getting a 120Gb hard disk copy, because the final tax amount would have been about 40.000 Euros. The Testo Unico, in fact, set a rate of 258 Euros-per-CD.

Thus, if you do the math…

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What’s ahead in security?

This is the title of a speech Withfield Diffie gave in Rome at University La Sapienza last Jan. 31 2008, where I have been invited to attend the round table the followed. Other participants were Corrado Giustozzi, Giovanni Manca (CNIPA – National Centre for Information Technology in the Public infrastructures), prof. Luigi Mancini and Luisa Franchina (ISCOM).

There are a few online account for the day but none of them tells about the “content” of the conference. Mr. Diffie’s talk was professional and fascinating – if you don’t belong to the IT security professional’s circle. And this is the point: how is it possible that in 2008 we – Italians – still are so far from moving (even a few) steps ahead from what we were talking in 1995?

“Fighting terrorism” was – as usual – the “leading concern” to advocate defense and civil rights suspension in Italy. And each time I ear some Italian civil servant singing that song I remember about Michael Crichton’s State of fear, whose lesson – creating a state of fear to let powers and lobbies pursue their goals – is largely missed. This is not to say that terrorism is a fake issue. But when security of the State become a political (i.e. partizan) weapon, all we get is neither effective anti-terrorism measures nor freedom protection.

As Benjamin Franklin said,

They that would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety

And this is what we are doing right now.