Tania Simoncelli

Tania Simoncelli is an American scientist who is the Senior Advisor to the Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Prior to that position, she worked for two years as Assistant Director for Forensic Science and Biomedical Innovation within the Office of Science and Technology Policy. From 2010 to 2013, she worked in the Food and Drug Administration's Office of the Commissioner. From 2003 to 2010, Simoncelli worked as the Science Advisor to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she advised the organization on emerging developments in science and technology that pose challenges for civil liberties.

In December 2013, Simoncelli was named by the journal Nature as one of "ten people who mattered this year" for her work in spearheading the development of the ACLU's successful legal challenge to the patenting of human genes. In August 2017, she was named Director of Policy for Science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Simoncelli has spoken, written, and advised on a number of contemporary science policy issues, including personalized medicine, gene patenting, forensic DNA data banks, pesticide testing in humans, and academic freedom. She is co-author with Sheldon Krimsky of Genetic Justice: DNA Data Banks, Criminal Investigations, and Civil Liberties.

Education Simoncelli received her BA in Biology and Science from Cornell University in 1993. She also received her MS degree from University of California, Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group.

Gene patents

From 1982 to 2013, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) accepted patents on isolated DNA sequences as a composition of matter. Simoncelli has stated that this became a "significant barrier to biomedical discovery and innovation." Ultimately, the case went before the Supreme Court, which, in a unanimous decision on June 13, 2013, invalidated Myriad's claims to isolated genes in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, ruling that merely isolating genes that are found in nature does not make them patentable.