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

Featured

DNA Tests: Neither Destiny nor History

By Pete Shanks | 10.16.2018
Biopolitical Times

Senator Elizabeth Warren has released the results of a DNA analysis bolstering her family’s belief that their ancestry is partly Native American. She did this as an understandable response to more than six years of political attacks, including specific demands that she be tested. But promoting such a test is extremely problematic.

The result does not prove that Warren is or even could be a member of the Cherokee tribe. As she herself tweeted, “DNA & family history has...

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

Risks Versus Ratings: How Will Michelle’s Memoir Reframe Conversations Around Infertility?

By Ayesha Chatterjee, Guest Contributor | 11.16.2018

In her new memoir, Becoming, Michelle Obama makes a brave choice: she reveals her experience of a miscarriage and...

Assisted Reproduction

Death vs Google

By Pete Shanks | 11.07.2018

Five years ago, Time magazine published the cover story illustrated at left: Can Google Solve Death? We have an answer:...

Society

“The Eugenics Crusade” on PBS

By Pete Shanks | 11.07.2018

As part of the American Experience series, PBS has produced a documentary and website about the 20th-century eugenics movement in...

U.S. Federal

News

Private IVF clinics urged to stop charging for expensive add-ons

By Matthew Weaver, The Guardian | 11.12.2018

IVF clinics have been putting profits before patient care by charging clients for expensive treatment add-ons that have no proven effectiveness, according to a draft statement by fertility experts, practitioners and the sector’s regulator.

The consensus statement agreed by 11...

Technologies

The promise and peril of gene drives

By Briefing, The Economist | 11.08.2018

“I think i got it,” says Alekos Simoni with a grin, returning an electronic fly zapper called “The Executioner” to a nearby metal shelf. With a deft flick of his wrist he has done away with a genetically modified mosquito...

Technologies

Life span has little to do with genes, analysis of large ancestry database shows

By Sharon Begley, Stat News | 11.06.2018

Millions of amateur genealogists assembling family trees on Ancestry.com probably figure they’re just finding lost relatives and assessing their genetic proximity to Prince Harry, but in fact they have unintentionally made a significant contribution to science. An analysis of 54...

Technologies

Join the debate on human genome editing!

By Yeyang Su, Impact Ethics [cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 11.03.2018

At the end of this month, the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing will be held in Hong Kong. In the invitation to participants, the local host and President of the Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong, Dr Lap-Chee...

Technologies

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