KIE: A patient's lawsuit against the University of California is raising questions about an individual's rights of ownership in relation to body tissues that have been turned over for biomedical research but are subsequently used commercially. In 1976, John Moore had his spleen removed at the University of California, Los Angeles, in connection with his leukemia treatment. The university and researchers David Golde and Shirley Quan recently received a patent on the biologically interesting Mo cell line, which was derived from Moore's spleen cells. Moore's suit claims that the university misappropriated his tissues and that the researchers failed to obtain a valid informed consent because they did not formally tell him about the potential commercial applications of the cell line.