Who Gets to Be Perfect?
By Corin Faife,
How We Get To Next [cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky]
| 09. 26. 2017
Editing the human genome has huge potential for improving health — for those who can afford it
Debojyoti Chakraborty smiles at me from his laboratory in New Delhi.Through the grainy resolution of our video call, I can just make out a button-up shirt and short black hair atop a boyish face; in the background, graduate students in lab coats drift in and out of shot. The CSIR-Institute of Genomics & Integrative Biology, where his lab is based, experiments with reprogramming adult tissue to take on the characteristics of embryonic stem cells, which can then grow into over 200 other cell types.
Chakraborty’s own research team is focused on two human diseases: a rare type of encephalitis and sickle-cell anemia. The latter is an inherited blood disorder, widespread across sub-Saharan Africa and among certain castes and tribal groups in India, in which the hemoglobin protein in red blood cells takes on an abnormal shape. This prevents the blood from carrying oxygen efficiently, leading to organ damage and severe pain. Because of the demographics of its genetic carriers, it disproportionately impacts poorer people...
Related Articles
By Jeffrey Gettleman and Maya Tekeli, The New York Times | 09.24.2025
For some Greenlanders, sorry isn’t enough.
The prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, made a special visit Wednesday to Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, to apologize in person for a traumatic chapter in Greenlandic history, when Danish doctors forced birth control on...
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 09.25.2025
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...
By Marianne Lamers, NEMO Kennislink [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 09.23.2025
Een rijtje gespreide vulva’s gaapt de bezoeker aan. Zó ziet een bevalling eruit, en zó een baarmoeder met foetus. Een zwangerschap, maar dan zonder zwangere vrouw, gestript van zorgen, gêne en pijn. De zwangerschapsmodellen en oefenbekkens, te zien in de...
By Johana Bhuiyan, The Guardian | 09.23.2025
In March 2021, a 25-year-old US citizen was traveling through Chicago’s Midway airport when they were stopped by US border patrol agents. Though charged with no crime, the 25-year-old was subjected to a cheek swab to collect their DNA, which...