The Center for Genetics and Society brings social justice and human rights to the center of public and policy discussions about human genetics and assisted reproduction.

Featured

Taking a closer look at recent reporting on gene-edited embryos

By Katie Hasson | 07.11.2026
Biopolitical Times

Media coverage of recent developments in embryo gene editing might seem to suggest that gene-edited babies are close to becoming a reality. As tech billionaires eager to profit off of techno-eugenics invest in “designer baby” technologies, attempts to normalize heritable genome editing – which remains unsafe and raises significant ethical and societal concerns – are especially dangerous. It’s worth taking a closer look at these developments and what they mean, in a way that pushes back on narratives normalizing the...

Genomics

Palantir Has a Hand in NIH’s Most Ambitious Health Initiative

By Julia Métraux, Mother Jones [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 07.07.2026

Aggregated News

During his 2015 State of the Union address, then-President Barack Obama announced what he promised would be an ambitious public health project. “Tonight, I’m launching a new Precision Medicine Initiative to bring us closer to curing diseases like cancer and diabetes...

U.S. Federal

Book Review: How to Rule the World

By Pete Shanks | 07.10.2026
Biopolitical Times

The title of this book is clever, not least because it is borrowed from a very secret society of a...

Patents & Other IP

‘I didn’t come here to get rich’: new research on the lives of Ukrainian women in Georgia’s surrogacy boom

By Olga Oleinikova, Medea Badashvili, and Polina Vlasenko, Guest Contributors | 04.23.2026
Biopolitical Times

“I didn’t come here to get rich. I came because I had no other way to keep my son safe...

Other Countries

Biopolitical Times

Reviews of Two Books Wrestling with Genomics

By Pete Shanks | 08.28.2026

What We Inherit by Sam Trejo and Daphne O. Martschenko; and Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden have a great...

Human Genetic Modification

Gene therapy trial characterised by hype and hubris ends in a child's death

By Claire Robinson and Jonathan Matthews, Guest Contributors | 08.25.2026

This is an excerpt of an article originally published on August 1, 2026 at GMWatch.

A six-year-old girl has...

U.S. Federal

Taking a closer look at recent reporting on gene-edited embryos

By Katie Hasson | 07.11.2026

Media coverage of recent developments in embryo gene editing might seem to suggest that gene-edited babies are close to becoming...

Genomics

News

U.S. Health Officials Move Quickly to Deploy Medical A.I. Despite Concerns

By Christina Jewett, The New York Times | 09.14.2026

The Trump administration is accelerating efforts to make artificial intelligence an integral part of medical care in the United States, throwing the resources and support of the federal government into projects that deploy A.I. agents to diagnose and prescribe treatments...

U.S. Federal

Egg freezing is not reproductive insurance – so what does 'success' really mean?

By Kylie Baldwin and Stuart Lavery, BioNews | 09.14.2026

In August, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) published their Scientific Impact Paper on 'social' or 'elective' egg freezing, a technology which increasing numbers of women are turning to in a bid to extend their fertile window and...

Other Countries

She Got a Great Deal on Egg Freezing. Then She Spiraled

By Maia Hibbett, Wired | 09.09.2026

THE INSTAGRAM POST, precision-guided by sex and age, had zeroed in on its target. Yuchen Tu is a conser­vatory-trained viola player from Chongqing, China, a lover of science fiction, and an aspiring member of the US Army Reserve Officer Training...

U.S. Federal

Can Geneticists Fight Disease by Targeting ‘Nurture’ Instead of ‘Nature’?

By Emily Baumgaertner Nunn, The New York Times | 09.08.2026

It is one of biology’s most ingenious rhythms: Every baby is born young. No matter how much wear and tear their parents’ DNA accumulated over their lifetimes, reproduction erases the molecular scars, handing a clean slate to the next generation...

Human Genetic Modification

Video
Reproduction and Family Formation: The State and the Market
Use Gene Editing to Make Better Babies | Debate | Intelligence Squared U.S.
The 'Perfect' Baby?: The Dangers of Gene Editing in Assisted Reproduction