CGS encourages responsible uses and effecitve governance of human genetic and assisted reproductive technologies

Featured

Reproductive gene editing imperils universal human rights

By Marcy Darnovsky, Leah Lowthorp and Katie Hasson, OpenGlobalRights | 02.15.2018

Op-Ed

What do recent advances in molecular genetics have to do with human rights? Quite a lot, it turns out. And key human rights documents have recognized this for some time.

Over the past few years, new “gene editing” tools that...

Human Rights

Personal Genomics Meets Blockchain

By Pete Shanks | 02.27.2018
Biopolitical Times

The launch of a genomics company with a difference was announced earlier this month. The individual customers who sign up to have their genomes marketed by Nebula Genomics will own their own data, keep it private and rent it to researchers and drug companies, fully anonymized. At least that’s the idea. The company aims to combine state-of-the-art genome sequencing with blockchain technology, the power behind the hugely hyped “digital currency” Bitcoin.

This approach has some practical problems, discussed below,...

Biotech & Pharma

Dog Cloning Headlines — Again

By Pete Shanks | 03.01.2018
Biopolitical Times

Editors seem convinced that dog cloning is a perennial hot topic that readers are just going to love. In fact,...

Animal Biotechnologies

First monkeys, and then us? Human cloning must stay off limits

By Marcy Darnovsky, New Scientist | 01.24.2018

Op-Ed

Remember the human cloning controversies of the early 2000s? One reason they faded was that scientists were unable to...

Animal Biotechnologies

Biopolitical Times

Women’s bodies, women’s identities, and the next chapter for Our Bodies Ourselves

By Gina Maranto, guest contributor, and Marcy Darnovsky | 04.20.2018

To contemplate the news that Our Bodies, Ourselves will cease updating its print and online information is to contemplate the...

Reproductive Justice, Health & Rights

“Race” and “IQ” Yet Again

By Pete Shanks | 04.13.2018

David Reich, a professor of genetics at Harvard, is the author of a new best-selling book, Who We Are...

Racial Justice

Is 23andMe in Trouble? Should They Be?

By Pete Shanks | 04.13.2018

The direct-to-consumer (DTC) gene testing company 23andMe seems to be in a strange position. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)...

Genetic Selection

News

Are Our Genes Really Our Fate? DNA’s Visual Culture and the Construction of Genetic Truth

By Kathleen Pierce, Nursing Clio | 04.24.2018

Aggregated News

The direct-to-consumer genetic testing company 23andme has recently been described by journalist Erika Check Hayden as a “unicorn.”1 For Hayden, this Silicon Valley idiom describes the company’s one billion dollar valuation while also capturing the rare opportunity it affords...

Public Opinion

In human cells, scientists find DNA that looks like a twisted knot instead of a double helix

By Deborah Netburn, Los AngelesTimes | 04.23.2018

Aggregated News

Biology textbooks may be due for a rewrite.

For the first time, scientists have detected a DNA structure inside living human cells that looks more like a four-stranded knot than the elegant double helix we learned about in school.

The...

Synthetic Biology

23ANDME Wants You To Share Even More Health Data

By Megan Molteni, Wired | 04.20.2018

Aggregated News

Almost exactly a year ago, 23andMe earned the right to tell people what diseases might be lurking in their DNA. Since then, the consumer genetic testing company has turned tubes of spit into health reports for thousands of its customers. You can...

Genomics

How Many Genes Do Cells Need? Maybe Almost All of Them

By Veronique Greenwood, Quntamagazine | 04.19.2018

Aggregated News

Genomics

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World Forum on Science and Democracy
San Francisco discussion - Gattaca at 20: Looking Back, Looking Ahead w/ a Disability Justice Focus
Berkeley discussion - Gattaca at 20: Looking Back, Looking Ahead