Kara Swanson

“They are saddened by the idea that this product that they believe in very strongly and think would benefit a lot of babies would be less accessible if allocated on the basis of company profit rather than patient need,” says Kara Swanson, a law professor at Northeastern University and the author of “Banking on the Body.” “In […]

It’s the framework that explains why “Black Americans were always inventing,” adds Kara W. Swanson, a law and history professor at Northeastern University. But proper ownership was hard to come by. “Many sold the rights to white men in part because they didn’t have the money to develop or because they were worried that people […]

The diversity gap in the patent system has “deep historical roots,” Northeastern University law professor Kara Swanson said.

When it comes to science and technology, there has long been a tension between the desire to single out an individual inventor and the reality that breakthroughs usually result from an incremental, collective process. “Science likes origin stories,” says Kara Swanson, a law professor and historian of science at Northeastern University.

And many working to address organ shortages are skeptical about shifting resources toward science and tech research. Organ banking could raise new ethical questions. According to Northeastern University law professor Kara Swanson, who’s written about the legal debates behind the property of the human body, the ability to begin banking organs will probably raise debates on […]

The word “bank” typically refers to financial institutions, large and small, from the storefront where you go to cash your checks to the big investment firms of Wall Street. Yet there is a class of banks that deals not with money but with bodily fluids—blood, sperm, and breast milk. These “banks” aren’t part of our […]

Americans have a nearly insatiable demand for blood. Every two seconds, someone in the country requires a blood transfusion. And to get one they go straight to a blood bank. But it’s a strange idea. A blood bank. Or a sperm bank. Or a breast milk bank. What kind of bank relies on donations? That’s […]

After last year’s Boston Marathon bombings, many people rushed to donate blood—so much that the Red Cross, in a statement the next day, said it had more than it needed. An adequate blood supply is something most of us now take for granted: Thanks to altruistic donors, we assume that, if we end up in […]