News

'Superbabies' Startup Seeks Funds for Controversial Gene Editing Push

By Sophie Alexander and Ike Swetlitz, Bloomberg | 06.25.2025

A California-startup focused on genetically editing human embryos — a step toward creating so-called designer babies — is raising money as many of Silicon Valley’s ultra-rich turn their attention to one of the most controversial technologies in medicine.

Bootstrap Bio...

Patents & Other IP

Can doctors test embryos for autism? And should they?

By Brittany Luse, Liam McBain, and Neena Pathak, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 05.28.2025

A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer, obesity, autism, bipolar disorder, even celiac disease. These conditions are informed by many genetic variants and environmental factors - so...

Genetic Selection

Why Deleting Your 23andMe Data Is a Political Imperative

By Katie Sagaser, The DNA Exchange | 05.27.2025

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this piece are solely my own and do not represent those of my...

U.S. Federal

Trumpian “Common Sense” and the History of IQ Tests

By Pepper Stetler, Los Angeles Review of Books | 05.08.2025

"Donald Trump Signs The Pledge" by Michael Vadon 
is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

This is...

Society
Earth wearing a face mask

The Moral Danger of Declaring the Pandemic Over Too Soon

By Gregg Gonsalves, The New York Times | 02.17.2022

The early 1990s were in many ways the most terrible of those first years of the AIDS epidemic in America...

Perspectives
Blue surgical face mask

Lifting the California mask mandate basically says chronically ill and disabled lives don’t matter

By Dipti S. Barot, San Francisco Chronicle | 02.16.2022

Photo by Kai Pilger on Unsplash

As the omicron surge wanes, and the experts read the sewage like tea leaves...

Eugenics
HIV particles (yellow) infecting host cell (blue)

A Woman Is Cured of H.I.V. Using a Novel Treatment

By Apoorva Mandavilli, The New York Times | 02.15.2022

Scanning electromicrograph of an
HIV-infected T cell. NIAID via wikimedia

A woman of mixed race appears to be the third...

Stem Cells
Three disabled BIPOC strolling down a street

Improving Health Outcomes for Black Women and Girls With Disabilities

By Megan Buckles and Mia Ives-Rublee, Center for American Progress | 02.15.2022

Photo licensed for reuse under CC BY 4.0

Studies show that people with disabilities are more likely than people without...

Perspectives
A "bubble baby" cured by this treatment

Good News for the Bubble Baby Disease Treatment Backed by Millions from California Taxpayers

By David Jensen, The California Stem Cell Report | 02.15.2022

Photo: CIRM

Twenty children seeking treatment for a rare affliction called the “bubble baby disease” today have some big-time, good...

U.S. States
Drawing of a heart

This family carried a rare mutation that should have been lethal. What was keeping them alive?

By Eric Boodman, STAT | 02.15.2022

Patrick J. Lynch, medical illustrator,
CC BY 2.5 >, via Wikimedia Commons

The result didn’t make sense. The researcher kept...

Genomics
SFPD at street demo

San Francisco police linked a woman to a crime using DNA from her rape exam, D.A. Boudin says

By Megan Cassidy, San Francisco Chronicle | 02.14.2022

Photo of SFPD by Steve Rhodes (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) 

Update: D.A. Chesa Boudin has dismissed the case against...

Policies
Close-up of baby's torso

First gene therapy for Tay-Sachs disease successfully given to two children

By Miguel Sena-Esteves, The Conversation | 02.14.2022

Two babies have received the first-ever gene therapy for Tay-Sachs disease after over 14 years of development.

Tay-Sachs is a...

Stem Cells