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

rainbow flag drawn on inside of white wrist

Gay men in Russia with surrogate children warned they face arrest

By Oliver Carroll, The Independent | 10.02.2020

Russian authorities have warned of the arrest of gay men who have fathered children to surrogate mothers, firing what appears...

Policies

Heritable human genome editing: making ‘societal dialogue’ meaningful

By Jackie Leach Scully, Nuffield Council on Bioethics | 10.02.2020

The Consensus Study Report of the International Commission on the Clinical Use of Human Germline Genome Editing, produced by...

Human Genetic Modification

Genetically modified horse embryo tech could be used to enhance performance

By Sarah Radford , Horse & Hound | 10.02.2020

Researchers in Argentina have produced what is believed to be the world’s first genetically edited horse embryo.

The team worked...

Animal Biotechnologies

Your ‘Ethnicity Estimate’ Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does

By Caitlin Harrington, Wired [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 10.02.2020

WHEN THE GENEALOGY company Ancestry released the latest update to its “ethnicity estimates” last month, a lot of people suddenly became...

Society

Clean Slate Endorsements, Fall 2020

By Guardian Editorial, San Francisco Bay Guardian [cites CGS] | 10.01.2020

We were for Bernie. We think he would have won in 2016 and would win this year.

But it’s not...

Society

Majority of Respondents Support Chimeric Animal Research: Survey

By Amanda Heidt, TheScientist | 10.01.2020

Human-animal chimeric embryos—organisms created using cells from two or more species—have the potential to change how researchers study disease and...

Society