Hawking Spleens, Selling Genes: the Human Body and the Laws of Property is devoted to a discussion of the human body as a hierarchy of commoditiable components. It traces the progressive entry into the marketplace of whole persons, their organs, tissues, cells and finally, their DNA and their proteins. The complex interaction between the science, the ethics and the legal issues is teased out with reference to the controversies abroad today. Special attention is given to South East Asia, an area which is showing an exponential growth in biotechnology, and is also a prime target for biopiracy and bioprospecting.