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

The Folly of ‘America First’ in the Race for Biodata Amid a Pandemic

By Tamsin Shaw, The New York Review of Books | 05.13.2020

America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has exposed a shocking lack of preparedness for public health emergencies. But it has...

Genomics

Coronavirus is the ultimate demonstration of the real-world impact of racism

By Alana Lentin, The Guardian | 05.12.2020

As coronavirus continues to rampage across the globe, it has become apparent that, while biologically the virus may not discriminate...

Does it matter that traces of coronavirus have been found in semen?

By Alison Motluk, HeyReprotech Newsletter | 05.12.2020

Genes from the virus that causes COVID-19 have been found in the semen of men who had the disease, according...

Assisted Reproduction

A white doctor injecting a black research subject at Tuskegee

How Racism Is Shaping the Coronavirus Pandemic

By Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker | 05.07.2020

Evelynn Hammonds, who chairs Harvard’s department of the history of science, has spent her career studying the intersection of race...

U.S. Federal

The near-certainty of a black depression

By Aaron Ross Coleman, Vox | 05.06.2020

Black Americans experience recessions the way front-seat passengers do head-on collisions. During the Great Depression, when national unemployment reached 24...