Jessica L. Roberts, JD

Jessica L. Roberts is a Professor of Law in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science at Emory University School of Law. She specializes in the legal and ethical issues related to genetics and other emerging health technologies, disability rights, and antidiscrimination law. Her scholarship has appeared, or is forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Science,Nature Biotechnology, and JAMA Health Policy, among others. Cambridge University Press published her book on “healthism,” co-authored with Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, in 2018. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Greenwall Foundation. Professor Roberts was named a 2018 Greenwall Faculty Scholar in Bioethics

Prior to Emory Law, Roberts was the director of the Health Law & Policy Institute and the Leonard H. Childs Professor in Law at the University of Houston Law Center and a professor of medicine (by courtesy) at the University of Houston College of Medicine. During her time at UH, she received the university-wide Teaching Excellence Award and the Provost’s Certificate of Excellence. A noted expert on diverse issues of health law, Roberts has been interviewed by several leading media outlets, including the New York Times, U.S. News, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, and BBC World Service.

For more information, visit: https://law.emory.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/roberts-profile.html

Genetic Property & Personhood: The Role of Ownership in Genetic Research

Grant Cycle: 2014-2015

Who should own genetic and genomic data? Despite the common intuition that a person’s unique genetic profile belongs to her, traditionally, members of the biotechnology industry have had exclusive ownership over the genetic and genomic information they accumulate. Regardless of the status of the laws and regulations, individuals continue to express the sense that their DNA is their own and that they should enjoy certain ongoing rights in their genetic and genomic data, including commercial interests. This asymmetry of rights has led to highly publicized feelings of exploitation, such as the story of Henrietta Lacks. Prof. Roberts’s project revisits issues of genetic and genomic ownership in light of recent social, scientific, legal, and regulatory developments. Given the changing landscapes of both law and science, now is a crucial time to reevaluate how we allocate ownership interests in genetic and genomic information. Prof. Roberts’s project seeks to help strike the proper balance between the interests of genetic and genomic data holders and the contributors of DNA.