CGS in the News

Bay Area Startups Want to Make Genetically Engineered Babies. What Could Go Wrong?

By Grace Won, KQED Forum [with CGS' Katie Hasson] | 12.02.2025

In the U.S., it’s illegal to edit genes in human embryos with the intention of creating a genetically engineered baby. But according to the Wall Street Journal, Bay Area startups are focused on just that. It wouldn’t be the first...

Genetic Selection

Developments in gene-editing technology raise new ethical questions

By [cites CGS' Katie Hasson], KCBS Radio | 11.19.2025

This is Ask An Expert, where every weekday at 9:20am, KCBS Radio is giving you direct access to top experts in various fields. Today: Gene-editing technology allows scientists to work with DNA in unprecedented ways, but there are larger scientific...

U.S. Federal
Embryo, with 5 visible cells.

Scientific Panel Says Editing Heritable Human Genes Could Be OK In The Future

By Rob Stein, NPR [cites Marcy Darnovsky] | 02.14.2017

Scientists could be allowed to make modifications in human DNA that can be passed down through subsequent generations, the National...

Bioethics
Against a shirt with black and gold stripes, a sticker reads "Do you care?" in a thought/speech bubble.

Written evidence for the Genomics and Genome-Editing Inquiry of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee

By Edward Hockings and Lewis Coyne, Ethics and Genetics [cites CGS] | 01.20.2017

KEY POINTS

  • UK biosciences policy has become increasingly motivated by economic considerations in recent years, at the expense, we believe...
Human Genetic Modification
A traffic light appears yellow to signify caution (rather than a green go, and a red stop)

The Promise and Peril of Emerging Reproductive Technologies

By Ekaterina Pesheva, Harvard Medical School [cites Marcy Darnovsky] | 01.11.2017

In vitro fertilization has transformed reproductive medicine and sparked a number of therapeutic and diagnostic breakthroughs.

Now a new, still...

Animal Biotechnologies
A wooden-like figure of a child builds a colorful tower of blocks. The child sits in a background surrounded by white and black checkered flooring.

2016 Fear vs Hope: Gene Editing— Terrible turning point?

By Pete Shanks, Deccan Chronicle | 01.01.2017

The next year may represent our best chance to prevent the rise of a modern, uncontrolled and dangerously ill-considered techno-eugenics...

Human Genetic Modification

Rethinking/transcending the red-blue, left-right, secular-religious and related divides, domestically and globally

By Richard Hayes, U .C. Berkeley College of Natural Resources/Energy and Resources Group | 02.25.2013

This short note introduces the third topic I want to address during my time at ERG this year. It follows...

Technologies