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

Framed for Murder By His Own DNA

By Katie Worth, Frontline | 04.19.2018

Aggregated News

When the DNA results came back, even Lukis Anderson thought he might have committed the murder.

“I drink a lot,” he remembers telling public defender Kelley Kulick as they sat in a plain interview room at the Santa Clara County,...

Genomics

African scientists call for more control of their continent’s genomic data

By Linda Nordling, Science | 04.18.2018

Aggregated News

As the genomics revolution finally turns its attention to Africa and northern researchers flock there to collect data, scientists from the continent are demanding a larger role in projects.

On 18 April, a group of Africa-based researchers issued guidelines for...

Other Countries

California lawmakers seek reparations for people sterilized by the state

By Samantha Young, The Mercury News | 04.17.2018

Aggregated News

Rosie Zaballos liked to host playtime tea parties and was sweet to everyone she met. But her older brother worried that the 16-year-old, whom her family described as “a little slow,” might someday become pregnant.

In his 30s and married,...

Eugenics

The Ethical Case for Having a Baby With Down Syndrome

By Chris Kaposy, New York Times | 04.16.2018

Op-Ed

My wife’s ultrasound turned up something abnormal in the baby’s heart — an otherwise innocuous feature that correlates with genetic conditions such as Down syndrome. A series of tests confirmed that our son indeed had Down syndrome. We were given...

Genetic Selection

Video
San Francisco discussion - Gattaca at 20: Looking Back, Looking Ahead w/ a Disability Justice Focus
Berkeley discussion - Gattaca at 20: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
Talking Biopolitics 2018 with Alondra Nelson and Jenny Reardon