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

abstract image of circles in blue, pink, and green

Controversial ‘3-Parent Baby’ Fertility Technique Fails to Deliver for Older Women

By Emily Mullin, Medium One Zero [cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 10.15.2019

An experimental and much-hyped reproductive procedure that mixes DNA from three people is not effective at boosting the chances of...

Assisted Reproduction

Megaphone in the colors of the French flag

Why an IVF Bill Is the Next Fault Line for the French Republic

By Camille Robcis, The Washington Post | 10.14.2019

Since 1994, France has banned surrogacy and restricted access to reproductive technologies to heterosexual couples who have been married or...

Assisted Reproduction

Critics Unmoved by Economic Report; Still Say No More Billions for California's Stem Cell Agency

By David Jensen, California Stem Cell Report | 10.10.2019

This week's relatively rosy report on the economic impact of California's $3 billion stem cell research program has not convinced...

Stem Cells

Sperm Donor Sues Because His Medical School Misused His Sperm

By Ellen Trachman, Above The Law | 10.09.2019

Thanks to the emergence of affordable home DNA testing, we are now constantly learning surprising news relating to family connections...

Assisted Reproduction

State Stem Cell Agency Hails Sales Tax Revenue, Job Growth as It Nears End of Life

By Erin Allday, San Francisco Chronicle | 10.09.2019

The state stem cell agency, which is expected to run out of taxpayer money by the end of this year...

Stem Cells

line drawings depicting apes evolving into a human

How Science has Shifted Our Sense of Identity

By Nathaniel Comfort, Nature | 10.08.2019

In the iconic frontispiece to Thomas Henry Huxley’s Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature (1863), primate skeletons march across...

Civil Society

Bottles of IVF hormones and a pile of syringes

The Business of IVF: How Human Eggs Went from Simple Cells to a Valuable Commodity

By Catherine Waldby, The Conversation | 10.03.2019

I think they collected […] maybe, six eggs. I think we got four embryos out of that […] One was...

Assisted Reproduction

young man of color wearing a hoodie behind a cyclone fence

U.S. Government Plans to Collect DNA from Detained Immigrants

By Caitlin Dickerson, The New York Times | 10.02.2019

The Trump administration is moving to collect DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of people booked into federal immigration custody...

Genomics