News

Developments in gene-editing technology raise new ethical questions

By [cites CGS' Katie Hasson], KCBS Radio | 11.19.2025

This is Ask An Expert, where every weekday at 9:20am, KCBS Radio is giving you direct access to top experts in various fields. Today: Gene-editing technology allows scientists to work with DNA in unprecedented ways, but there are larger scientific...

U.S. Federal

Genetically Engineered Babies Are Banned. Tech Titans Are Trying to Make One Anyway.

By Emily Glazer, Katherine Long, Amy Dockser Marcus, The Wall Street Journal | 11.08.2025

For months, a small company in San Francisco has been pursuing a secretive project: the birth of a genetically engineered baby.

Backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, along with Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, the startup—called...

Genetic Selection

Who Gets to Procreate and Parent? A Black Feminist Critique of the Pronatalist Agenda

By Jallicia A. Jolly, Sydney Curtis and Nicole Sessions, Ms. Magazine | 10.17.2025

Pronatalism is an old idea with roots in eugenics and nationalism, that is now fashionable among far-right influencers and policymakers. They talk...

U.S. Federal

Does One Size Fit All?

By Jay S. Kaufman, Los Angeles Review of Books | 09.27.2025

This is the 10th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring...

Society

The Promise and the Reality of Gene Editing

By Carl Zimmer, The New York Times | 10.07.2020

In July 2019, MIT Technology Review took a break from its usual beats, such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology, to...

Human Genetic Modification

Scientists win Nobel chemistry prize for 'genetic scissors'

By Linda Geddes, The Guardian | 10.07.2020

Two scientists have been awarded the 2020 Nobel prize in chemistry for developing the genetic scissors used in gene editing...

Human Genetic Modification

CRISPR’s Adaptation to Genome Editing Earns Chemistry Nobel

By Amanda Heidt, The Scientist | 10.07.2020

^{Illustration © Niklas Elmehed for Nobel Media}

This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded jointly to Emmanuelle Charpentier...

Human Genetic Modification

Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded to two women who developed CRISPR, a revolutionary gene-editing tool

By Ben Guarino, Washington Post | 10.07.2020

A pair of scientists — Jennifer A. Doudna, a biochemist at the University of California at Berkeley, and Emmanuelle Charpentier...

Human Genetic Modification

Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded to 2 Scientists for Work on Genome Editing

By Katherine J. Wu, Carl Zimmer and Elian Peltier, New York Times | 10.07.2020

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was jointly awarded on Wednesday to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for their 2012...

Human Genetic Modification

Stanford will rename campus spaces named for David Starr Jordan and relocate statue depicting Louis Agassiz

By Chris Peacock, Stanford News | 10.07.2020

Stanford will rename campus features named after David Starr Jordan and take actions to provide the public with a more...

Civil Society

Is it "fraud" when you sell bad sperm as good?

By Alison Motluk, HeyReprotech Newsletter | 10.06.2020

A lot happened last week in the department of problem sperm.

For one thing, the Supreme Court of Georgia decided...

Assisted Reproduction

Gene-Silencing Pesticides Pose New Risks to Health, Environment and Farmers

By Eva Sirinathsinghji, Kendra Klein and Dana Perls, Friends of the Earth | 10.06.2020

WASHINGTON — “Gene-silencing pesticides” now under development pose unique risks to surrounding ecosystems and beneficial insects, including bees, according to...

Synthetic Biology