Tempest in a spit cup
By Robert Sanders,
UC Berkeley Media Relations
| 09. 10. 2010
[Cites CGS]
BERKELEY - A controversial UC Berkeley program to analyze three genes in the DNA of incoming students culminates next week with a keynote address and the first of a series of panel discussions and lectures that will run through October.
Organizers and critics alike hope these events will spark a campus-wide discussion of the pros and cons of genetic testing and the promise or peril of personalized medicine.
A Sept. 13 lecture, "Looking for the Good News in Your Genome," by campus geneticist Jasper Rine, will set the stage with a discussion of the promise new DNA technologies hold for improving human health.
Highlights of additional events include:
- A Sept. 14 faculty panel discussion on "Genes & Behavior"
- A Sept. 16 panel on "Direct-to-Consumer DNA Testing" that includes representatives from the genetic testing industry and genetic privacy groups
- Panel discussions on "Fictionalizing Science and the Genome" and the "Uses and Abuses of Genomic Knowledge" on Sept. 20 and 21, respectively
- A final keynote address on Sept. 29, "Personal Genomics and Public Angst," by Alta Charo, a special advisor to the...
Related Articles
By Hamed Aleaziz, The New York Times | 08.13.2026
Immigrants at Ellis Island undergoing a medical inspection | Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash
In 1924, Congress sent a message to the world: We are no longer ready to take “your tired, your poor, your huddled...
What We Inherit by Sam Trejo and Daphne O. Martschenko; and Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden have a great deal in common, with substantial differences in style and emphasis. Both books attempt, in different ways, to show the reader just where current research into human genomics stands, where that might be going, and why the authors are interested. In short, the influence of genomic research on our societies is already large and seems likely to change them in ways...
By Dan Falk, Nautilus | 08.20.2026
The pseudoscience of eugenics, founded on the mistaken notion that nature envisions some “right” combination of genes, and that selective breeding can improve the human race, is making a comeback. While the heyday of eugenics was a century ago, the...
By Emily Packard Dawson and Lainie Friedman Ross, MedPage Today | 08.18.2026
Few things evoke a greater sense of desperation than a parent seeking an experimental treatment for their child. That desperation can make even extraordinary risks seem worth taking. This dynamic has come into stark relief after Mei, a 6-year-old girl...
