News

The group behind Project 2025 wants a ‘Manhattan Project’ for more babies

By Jacob Bogage, The Washington Post | 09.03.2025

The conservative group behind the Project 2025 governing playbook for President Donald Trump’s second term is set to propose sweeping revisions to U.S. economic policy meant to encourage married heterosexual couples to have more children.

The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing...

Policies

Disgust, Horror, and “Elimination”: Trump and RFK Jr.’s Eugenicist Autism Conference

By Julie Métraux, Mother Jones | 09.23.2025

^{“Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0}

On Monday, President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held a press conference on their attempts to divine the causes of autism—much...

Bioethics

The quest to create gene-edited babies gets a reboot

By Rob Stein, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 08.06.2025

A Chinese scientist horrified the world in 2018 when he revealed he had secretly engineered the birth of the world's...

Genetic Selection

Who decides the future of humanity? SA’s genome editing guidelines spark global concern

By Vuyile Madwantsi, Independent Online | 08.22.2025

Imagine this: a future where parents could choose their baby’s eye colour, height or even intelligence.

Sounds like science fiction...

Policies

These Sisters With Sickle Cell Had Devastating, and Preventable, Strokes

By Gina Kolata and Ilana Panich-Linsman, New York Times | 05.23.2021

It was 4 a.m. on a Sunday when Dana Jones heard an ominous sound, barely audible over the whirring of...

Perspectives

Need Public Policy for Human Gene Editing, Heatwaves, or Asteroids? Try Thinking Like a Citizen

By Nicholas Weller, Michelle Sullivan Govani, Mahmud Farooque, Issues in Science and Technology | 05.19.2021

In a ballroom at the Arizona Science Center one afternoon in 2017, more than 70 Phoenix residents—students, teachers, nurses, and...

Civil Society

The Promise and Perils of the New Fertility Entrepreneurs

By Anna Louie Sussman, The New Yorker | 05.19.2021

France Brunel, who is thirty-six, first considered freezing her eggs after ending a two-year relationship, in 2018. She’s not sure...

Media Coverage

One-time CRISPR hit lowers cholesterol in monkeys

By Alla Katsnelson, Chemical & Engineering News | 05.19.2021

^{“Cholesterol emboli” by Boonyarit Cheunsuchon

is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0}

A single shot of gene therapy lowers “bad”...

Animal Biotechnologies

Decades after a tragic failure, gene therapy successfully treats a rare liver disease

By Jocelyn Kaiser, Science | 05.18.2021

Twenty-two years ago, one of scientists’ first attempts at gene therapy ended in tragedy when a young man died. The...

Human Genetic Modification

University of Cape Town’s battle to tackle a racist legacy

By Linda Nordling, Nature | 05.18.2021

^{Photo by Tony Carr via Flickr}

In 2015, a giant crane hoisted a 900-kilogram bronze statue of the imperialist Cecil...

LGBTQI

Mixed messages: is research into human-monkey embryos ethical?

By Philip Ball, The Guardian | 05.15.2021

When King Minos of Crete was given a magnificent bull by the sea god Poseidon for a sacrifice, he could...

Animal Biotechnologies

How a Genetic Trait in Black People Can Give the Police Cover

By Michael LaForgia and Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, New York Times | 05.15.2021

When they carried the body of a 32-year-old Black man named Lamont Perry out of the woods in Wadesboro, N.C...

Bioethics