Category: Biotech and Bioinformatics

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Wrongful Conviction and Protection of the Innocent

Tomorrow, at the University of Milan, I shall participate to a round-table organized by the Italy Innocence Project. The topic is: The Italian Legal System and the Judiciary Mistake.

Here is the full program:

ERRORE GIUDIZIARIO E TUTELA DELL’INNOCENTE

WRONGFUL CONVICTION AND PROTECTION OF THE INNOCENT

EVENTO SPONSORIZZATO DAL CENTER FOR THE GLOBAL STUDY OF WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS DELLA FACOLTÀ DI LEGGE DELL‘UNIVERSITÀ DI CINCINNATI, OHIO, STATI UNITI (DIRETTO DAL PROF. M. GODSEY)

VENERDÌ 6 GIUGNO 2014 9.30 – 18.30

UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO – SALA NAPOLEONICA – VIA SANT’ANTONIO 10

SALUTI INTRODUTTIVI: LUCA LUPÁRIA (Professor of Criminal Procedure at the University of Milan, Director of the Italy Innocence Project); VINICIO NARDO (Segretario dell’Unione delle Camere Penali )

PRIMA SESSIONE (ORE 09.50) COORDINA: PROF. LUCA LUPARIA

L’ESPERIENZA DEGLI STATI UNITI D’AMERICA
MARK GODSEY (Professor at the University of Cincinnati, Director of the Ohio Innocence Project)
JUSTIN BROOKS (Professor at the California Western School of Law, Director of the California Innocence Project)

LA TUTELA DEL CONDANNATO INNOCENTE IN EUROPA
MICHAEL NAUGHTON (Director of the University of Bristol Innocence Project, Director of the Innocence Network UK)
DAVID LANGWALLNER (Professor at the Griffith College of Dublin, Director of the Irish Innocence Project)
SYLVAIN CORMIER (Attorney, Director of the Innocence Project of France)
EVELYN BELL (Chief Scientist of the Knoops’ Innocence Project)
MARIA EJCHART-DUBOIS (Member of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and of the Innocence Legal Clinic in Warsaw)

SECONDA SESSIONE (ORE 14.45)

CAUSE E RIMEDI DELL’ERRORE GIUDIZIARIO IN UNA PROSPETTIVA COMPARATA
MARTIN KILLIAS (Expert in Criminology, Professor at the Universities of St. Gallen, Lausanne and Zurich) DANIEL VANEK (Expert in forensic DNA identifications, Professor at the Charles University in Prague) ERIC VOLZ (International Innocence Expert, Director of The David House Agency)
ULF STRIDBECK (Professor in Criminal Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo)

ERRORE GIUDIZIARIO E SISTEMA ITALIANO
TAVOLA ROTONDA
LUCA LUPÁRIA (Professor of Criminal Procedure at the University of Milan, Director of the Italy Innocence Project) GIUSEPPE GENNARI (Judge at the Court of Milan)
ANDREA MONTI (Attorney, Expert in forensic DNA)
MARTINA CAGOSSI (Junior researcher at the University of Milan)

EVENTO GRATUITO (PREVIA ISCRIZIONE)

TRADUZIONE SIMULTANEA INGLESE-ITALIANO

Evento accreditato dall’Ordine degli Avvocati di Milano (n. 6 crediti formativi)

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Data Protetcion, MTA, Human Samples and Identity Backtracing

To comply with privacy and data-protection regulations, Material Transfer Agreements for human samples often state that the samples are either anonymous (meaning: the donor institution doesn’t know at all the ID of the patient) or anonymized (the donor institution only knows and keeps secret the patient ID.) But this compliance approach won’t work anymore, since the probability of backtracing the ID of patient accessing third parties provided information is not only a proof-of-concept but an “actual reality.”

Amending the MTA to handle this issue is far more complicated than ask the lawyers to just re-phrase their lingo, because what is actually needed is a thorough analysis of the human sample collection process back to the first ring of the donor chain.

The sooner the biobank community will address this issue, the better for the research, the pharma industry and – first of all – the patient himself.

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The “Specialist” Lawyer… Whatever It Means

An upcoming regulation – still in draft – will regulate the possibility for an Italian lawyer to call himself “specialist” of something. This “specialist patch” will be obtained by either attending seminars and courses or by showing evidence of practicing in a specific field (BTW, in the mandatory list of field of practice, there are no reference to high-tech, pharma and telco topics.)

I wonder which company has ever chosen a lawyer just because of the patches he stuck on his gown.

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The Danger of the New Crusaders and the Risk for the Medical Research

Repubblica.it, an Italian online newspaper, accounts for the cancellation of a fund-raising initiative to collect money for the research on rare disease. The cancellation has been motivated by the fear of riots provoked by animalist activists who object living animals to be used in medical research. This form of terrorism is a dangerous growing trend in Italy, and one of the reasons for this growing is that extreme animalism is not perceived as bad as its “political” sibling (thank to the support given by teen-agers oriented TV channels, politicians and artists.) I don’t see how the opinion of (former)models, self-professed experts with no impact-factor or citation-index or bloggers-on-a-mission should prevail over the facts stated by the major Italian research institution.

Anyway the consequence is that police authorities and the government aren’t taking seriously this issue letting activists to continue threatening the medical and biotech research in Italy. Of course I don’t claim that “every animalist is a terrorist” and I don’t want to enter into the semantics of both words. What I do not find fair is the justification for the use of violence in the name of an idea: the field of history is crossed by enormous rivers of blood because somebody bleieved to be absolutely right, thus taking the burden to “convert” those who disagreed.

As often happens in Italy, this is the result of the a confusion between “ethics” (that is a personal matter) and “law” (that is – or is supposed to be – a tool for balancing contradictory interests.) This confusion is likely to badly affects the feasibility of the scientific research in Italy. I still haven’t collected enough information about how big a disincentive this animalist threat is for the health companies who want to invest in Italy, but the very first hints don’t let imagine a bright future.