News

These companies help parents try to pick their babies' traits. Experts are wary

By Rob Stein, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 05.06.2026

Justin Schleede reaches onto a black lab bench to pick up a tray of small plastic tubes.

"These are saliva samples as well as blood," says Schleede, a geneticist who runs Herasight Inc.'s lab in Morrisville, N.C. "We also...

Genetic Selection

The Measured Listener

By Daniel Shanahan, Los Angeles Review of Books | 05.31.2026

This is the 15th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring the history of eugenics and the ways it shapes our present. You can read the first part here. The series...

U.S. States

The start-ups dreaming of creating genetically modified babies

By Alexandre Piquard, Le Monde [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 05.22.2026

"If proven to be safe, we believe preventive gene editing could be one of the most important health technologies of...

U.S. Federal

Natural Election

By Jonathan Basile, Los Ángeles Review of Books | 04.29.2026

WILLIAM BATESON, a foundational figure in the science of genetics at the turn of the last century, once recounted the...

Society

Why Clinical Ethicists Are Not Activists

By Carl Elliott, Hastings Center Report | 07.13.2021

Abstract

Activism is rare among clinical ethicists because the position of ethics consultant is constructed in a way that makes...

Biopolitics

a gloved hand holding up a sheet of paper with a DNA sequence on it.

A secret algorithm is transforming DNA evidence. This defendant could be the first to scrutinize it.

By Justin Jouvenal, Boston Globe | 07.13.2021

The Exxon clerk never got a good look at the assailants who robbed him at gunpoint in Fairfax County, so...

Genomics

W.H.O. Experts Seek Limits on Human Gene-Editing Experiments

By Gina Kolata, New York Times | 07.12.2021

A committee of experts working with the World Health Organization on Monday called on the nations of the world to...

Policies

Equity and access need to be at the forefront of innovation in human genome editing

By Jantina de Vries and Françoise Baylis, The Conversation | 07.12.2021

In July 2021, after more than two years of study and consultation, the World Health Organization’s Expert Advisory Committee on...

Policies

‘The Man Who Hated Women’ Is Mostly About the Women He Hated

By Jennifer Szalai, New York Times | 07.12.2021

“The Man Who Hated Women,” the arresting title of Amy Sohn’s new book, would have been more fitting if the...

Arts & Culture

Should we edit human embryos' genomes, and if so then how?

By Dieter Egli, BioNews [cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 07.12.2021

I recently received a thoughtful letter from a college student I do not know – I'll call her Claudia* –...

Human Genetic Modification

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Receive Environmental Award For Their Two-Children Limit

By Evita Duffy, The Federalist | 07.12.2021

^{Photo by Mark Jones on Flickr}

For vowing to only have two children max, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have...

Public Opinion

A New Era of Designer Babies May Be Based on Overhyped Science

By Laura Hercher, Scientific American | 07.12.2021

For better or worse, genetic testing of embryos offers a potential gateway into a new era of human control over...

Assisted Reproduction