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

Imagine CRISPR cures

By Fyodor D. Urnov, Molecular Therapy | 10.27.2021

A decade of progress in sequencing and in CRISPR/Cas technologies has created a situation without precedent in the history of...

Stem Cells

Inside the lawsuit that ended US gene patenting

By Heidi Ledford, Nature | 10.25.2021

Not so long ago, if you asked someone about the US Patent and Trademark Office’s practice of granting patents on...

Policies

California’s shameful history of forced sterilization

By Editorial Board, The Press Democrat | 10.24.2021

^{Photo of Sonoma Developmental Center

licensed for use under CC BY-SA 4.0 on WikiCommons}

Staff Writer Phil Barber’s startling account...

Bioethics

image of coronavirus - a red sphere with green spikes

COVID-19 and the rebiologisation of racial difference

By Wingel Xue, Alexandre White, The Lancet | 10.23.2021

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, early dashboards set up by the US Centers for Disease Control and...

Public Opinion

What Dune Reveals about Reproductive Control and Eugenics

By Andrew J. Mongue and Caitlin E. McDonough-Goldstein, Scientific American | 10.22.2021

Few fictional creatures are as iconic or as synonymous with their franchise as the giant apex predators of the desert...

Society

No, scientists are not any closer to pig-to-human transplants than they were last week

By Jason Mast, Endpoints News | 10.22.2021

Steve Holtzman was awoken by a 1 a.m. call from a doctor at Duke University asking if he could put...

Biotech & Pharma

States Are Toughening Up Privacy Laws for At-Home DNA Tests

By Emily Mullin, Wired | 10.21.2021

IF YOU’VE EVER spit into a plastic tube or swabbed your cheek and mailed your saliva away to learn about your...

Policies

Campus professor Osagie K. Obasogie elected as member to the National Academy of Medicine

By Lydia Sidhom, The Daily Californian [cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 10.20.2021

UC Berkeley professor of law and bioethics Osagie K. Obasogie was elected for membership to the National Academy of Medicine...

Civil Society