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

Featured

CIRM Faces Its Future

By Pete Shanks | 08.14.2018
Biopolitical Times

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is running out of money. It is also running out of time to prove that California’s $6 billion dollar investment in the agency was worthwhile. (Half of that money was for interest.) Current estimates are that the last grants funded by 2004’s Proposition 71 will be made in 2019.

What next? CIRM won’t immediately fold in the fourth quarter of next year; the administrative budget will run through at least 2020. But...

Technologies

Genetically modifying future children isn’t just wrong. It would harm all of us

By Marcy Darnovsky, The Guardian | 07.17.2018

Op-Ed

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has taken what it clearly regards as a brave new step: it has openly endorsed the use of genome editing to engineer the traits of future children and generations. The council’s report, Genome editing...

Human Genetic Modification

The Evolving State of Human Germline Editing

By Katie Hasson, GeneWatch | 08.06.2018

Op-Ed

A wave of controversy about reproductive gene editing gathered force in response to reports in 2015 of the first CRISPR...

Technologies

Beyond Bioethics: Toward a New Biopolitics

By Daniel Bojar, The Biologist [review of the book edited by CGS' Osagie K Obasogie and Marcy Darnovsky] | 09.06.2018

Aggregated News

The dramatic pace of scientific discoveries in recent decades has not only led to remarkable improvements in domains such as...

Society

Biopolitical Times

Is Silence Consent?

By Pete Shanks | 09.05.2018

On August 13, 2018, Molecular Therapy published a report (Open Access) that explicitly “suggests the efficiency and genetic...

Technologies

Steinberg, Still Starting to Sell Eugenics

By Pete Shanks | 09.05.2018

At irregular intervals over the last decade or so, Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg of The Fertility Institutes has used the media...

Technologies

CIRM Faces Its Future

By Pete Shanks | 08.14.2018

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is running out of money. It is also running out of time to...

Technologies

News

Labour calls for ban on early foetus sex test

By Amber Haque, BBC | 09.17.2018

Labour is calling for a ban on parents-to-be being told the sex of their baby after early blood tests, amid fears it may lead to abortions of girls.

The Non-Invasive Prenatal Test (NIPT) is used by the NHS to test...

Technologies

Pet Genetic Testing Companies Are Making Promises They Can’t Keep

By Jessica Hekman, Undark | 09.13.2018

The promise of a sequenced genome is like a wrapped present, containing exactly what you always wanted but never knew you could get: predictions of all your future health problems and instructions for how to avoid them. Pet owners are...

Technologies

Should ‘Race’ Be Taught in High School Biology?

By Michael Schulson , Undark | 09.12.2018

LAST SPRING, Paul Strode gave an unusual survey to his advanced biology students at Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado. The first five questions were:

MATTERS OF FACT:
Exploring the culture of science.

1. Define as best you can: What...

Society

14 years after stem cell research bond measure passed, is California getting a return on investment?

By Larry Mantle, KPCC AirTalk [features Marcy Darnovsky] | 09.12.2018

In 2004, Voters approved Proposition 71 by nearly 60 percent establishing a $3 billion bond to fund the science of stem cell therapy. As a result, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, or CIRM, was created to manage the funds...

Human Genetic Modification

Video
Where the Debate Over "Designer Babies" Began
World Forum on Science and Democracy
San Francisco discussion - Gattaca at 20: Looking Back, Looking Ahead w/ a Disability Justice Focus