TELL US MORE ELDORA L. ELLISON ’88
Recently, patent attorney Eldora Ellison got a cameo in journalist Walter Isaacson’s 2021 book The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race. He interviewed Ellison over breakfast about her role in the ongoing legal battles surrounding the patents on Doudna’s Nobel Prizewinning discovery of CRISPR, or gene editing, and concluded that Ellison “would be great on the Supreme Court, which nowadays could use at least one justice who understands biology and technology.” 30
Haverford Magazine
Ellison, who earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry, molecular, and cell biology at Cornell University before shifting to law, says she’s more comfortable litigating from the other side of a courtroom bench or, on her days off, getting behind the wheel of her powerboat. But she is passionate about merging biotechnology and the field of intellectual property law—which she joined 27 years ago. For the last 16 years, Ellison has been a director, or partner, at Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox in Washington, D.C., and currently serves as cochair of the firm’s Patent Office Litigation Practice. In 2018, she received the Haverford
PHOTO: JOE SHYMANSKI
Advocating for Biotechnology’s Biggest Innovators
