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

A Vision for the Future of Science Philanthropy

By Evan S. Michelson and Adam F. Falk, Issues in Science and Technology | 11.09.2021

Although we can envision many ways that the scientific enterprise might evolve in the future, an often-overlooked component will surely...

Society

Q&A: Bioethicist Leigh Turner on the worrisome boom in unregulated stem cell clinics

By Megan Molteni, STAT | 11.08.2021

In 2016, the Food and Drug Administration put the emerging stem cell cottage industry on notice. At the time...

Policies

‘Nightmare’ IVF mix-up leaves L.A. couple giving birth to other family’s baby

By Hayley Smith, The Los Angeles Times | 11.08.2021

When Daphna Cardinale gave birth to her second daughter in September 2019, she and her husband, Alexander, were immediately puzzled...

U.S. States

brown eggs in a basket with a pink piggy bank

I sold my eggs for an Ivy League education – but was it worth it?

By Ellie Houghtaling, The Guardian | 11.07.2021

My eyes flutter open. I’m surrounded by four nurses holding me upside down. They shake me back and forth, urging...

Bioethics

All Those 23andMe Spit Tests Were Part of a Bigger Plan

By Kristen V Brown, Bloomberg | 11.04.2021

A few months ago, on the morning 23andMe Holding Co. was about to go public, Chief Executive Officer Anne Wojcicki...

Society

Becoming Without: Making Transgenic Mosquitoes and Disease Control in Brazil

By Luísa Reis-Castro, Duke University Press | 11.01.2021

The First Bite

At the end of a day of fieldwork in Juazeiro, a city in Northeast Brazil, I sat...

Animal Biotechnologies

Blue Instagram advertisement for Modern Fertility, reading "Want kids one day?"

Hounded by fertility ads on Instagram? Don't let them stress you out.

By Rachel Kraus, Mashable | 10.31.2021

Photo: screenshot from Instagram

On Instagram, I scroll past a blonde toddler's second birthday, a senior dog that's up for...

Society

test tubes of blood with purple and red stoppers in a yellow grid

How Silicon Valley hatched a plan to turn blood into human eggs

By Antonio Regalado, MIT Tech Review | 10.28.2021

^{_{image "Blood Samples" by Daniel Sone from the website of the National Cancer Institute}}

A few years ago, a young man...

Animal Biotechnologies