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.

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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

Genetics is not why more BAME people die of coronavirus: structural racism is

By Winston Morgan, The Guardian | 06.04.2020

From the start of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been an attempt to use science to explain the disproportionate impact...

Eugenics

Genes May Leave Some People More Vulnerable to Severe Covid-19

By Carl Zimmer, The New York Times | 06.03.2020

Why do some people infected with the coronavirus suffer only mild symptoms, while others become deathly ill?

Geneticists have been...

Genomics

The Inflated Promise of Genomic Medicine

By Erik Parens, Scientific American | 06.01.2020

Since its birth 30 years ago, proponents of the Human Genome Project have promised that genetics research would yield untold...

Addressing Racism’s Toll: My Minneapolis Experience

By Michele Goodwin, Ms. | 06.01.2020

_{Photo by munshots on Unsplash}

The past few days have been traumatizing for our nation, with the murder of George...

Eugenics

Qatar virus tracing app stirs rare privacy backlash

By Gregory Walton, AFP | 05.24.2020

Doha (AFP) - Privacy concerns over Qatar's coronavirus contact tracing app, a tool that is mandatory on pain of prison...

Policies

Are surrogate and IVF babies ‘essential’ in a pandemic?

By Amrita Pande, Mail & Guardian | 05.22.2020

A recent New York Times article heightened the sense of dystopia of the world that we seem to be...

'All the psychoses of US history': how America is victim-blaming the coronavirus dead

By Lois Beckett, The Guardian | 05.21.2020

_{Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash}

Why do Americans represent less than 5% of the world’s population but nearly a...

America’s Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further

By Ed Yong, The Atlantic | 05.20.2020

here was supposed to be a peak. But the stark turning point, when the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the...

U.S. Federal