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

Featured

Setting Aside Social Concerns and Public Participation, Scientific Committee Maps a Pathway to Heritable Human Genome Editing

By Center for Genetics and Society | 09.03.2020
Press Statement

A report released today by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences and Medicine and the U.K. Royal Society lays out a road map to clinical uses of heritable genome editing – that is, altering the genes and traits of future...

Human Genetic Modification

Bioengineered Gametes: Techno-Liberation or Techno-Trap?

By Marcy Darnovsky, Biopolitical Times | 08.26.2020
Biopolitical Times
Writing in the pages of The New York Times, Harvard Business School professor Debora Spar argues that a coming technological breakthrough – in vitro gametogenesis, or gametes manufactured from ordinary body cells – will herald a “revolution” that will “dismantle completely the reproductive structure of heterosexuality.”
Assisted Reproduction

Forum: Risks and rewards of gene editing

By Marcy Darnovsky, Issues in Science and Technology | 07.31.2020

Op-Ed

In this interview as in past public comments, Jennifer Doudna opens the door to using the CRISPR platform she helped...

Genetic Selection

Our Commitments to Social Justice and Anti-Racist Work

By Center for Genetics and Society | 06.06.2020
Biopolitical Times
We are in a moment of extreme challenge for each of us and for our country's future – yet again....
Bioethics

Biopolitical Times

Proposition 14 Update: Will Cash and Connections Overwhelm Skepticism from the Press?

By Pete Shanks | 10.28.2020

As the November 3 election approaches, Californians are focusing on the ballot propositions. The money spent on them this year...

Policies

ICE Sterilizations Should Be a Wake-Up Call to California and its Governor

By Emily Galpern, Alexandra Minna Stern, Laura Jiménez, Carly A. Myers, and Diana Block | 10.26.2020

Image of Sonoma State Home, site of the highest number of eugenic sterilizations in California, courtesy of Alexandra Minna Stern...

U.S. States

Charpentier and Doudna Win the Nobel

By Pete Shanks | 10.08.2020

Congratulations to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna on their joint award of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, “for...

Policies

News

Crispr Gene Editing Can Lead to Big Mistakes in Human Embryos

By Amy Dockser Marcus, Wall Street Journal [cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 10.29.2020

Scientists using the Crispr gene-editing technology in human embryos to try to repair a gene that causes hereditary blindness found it made unintended and unwanted changes, frequently eliminating an entire chromosome or large sections of it.

The study published Thursday in...

Human Genetic Modification

Kicked From the Curb in Alabama

By Ari Ne’eman, New York Times | 10.28.2020

Last week, the Supreme Court acquiesced to another attack on the voting rights of all Americans. In a 5-3 decision, the court blocked a trial judge’s ruling permitting Alabama counties to offer curbside voting as a reasonable accommodation to disabled...

U.S. States

Gene Editing Cannot Be Separated From The Violent History of Eugenics and Medical Racism

By Jude Casimir, Wear Your Voice [cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 10.27.2020

Henrietta Lacks visited John Hopkins Hospital in 1951, complaining of vaginal bleeding. A mother of five children, Lacks was diagnosed by gynecologist Howard Jones with cervical cancer. After undergoing radium treatments, sample cells were extracted from her tumor. While the cells extracted...

Policies

With wildfires burning and Covid-19 spreading, can California afford stem cell research? Voters are set to decide

By Usha Lee McFarling, STAT | 10.26.2020

LOS ANGELES — This Election Day, California voters are being asked to replenish funding for the state’s ambitious stem cell research program, with a well-financed campaign that’s making heady promises about curing diabetes, paralysis, cancer, and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases....

Policies

Video
Climate Crisis, Designer Babies and Pandemics: Challenging the Techno-Utopianism of the Genetically Engineered Age
Biomedical Ethics and the Existential Threat to Persons with Disabilities | Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
Future of Genetics | FULL DEBATE | Doha Debates