News

A Chinese scientist horrified the world in 2018 when he revealed he had secretly engineered the birth of the world's first gene-edited babies.

His work was reviled as reckless and unethical because, among other reasons, gene-editing was so new...

INTRODUCTION

Baby bonuses. Motherhood medals. Fertility tracking. You may have heard of these policy proposals as solutions from the Trump administration to help encourage women to have more children.

Besides falling short of ensuring that people have what they need...

Adapted from Mitochondrial DNA at
National Human Genome Research Institute

Recently, media outlets around the world have been reporting on...

A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer...

Newborn baby lying on white towel
By Michael Krasny, KQED [features CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 11.28.2018

A scientist in China announced this week that he had created the world's first genetically-edited human babies. In an announcement...

Gloved hands putting pipet into test tubes
By Megan Molteni, Wired | 11.27.2018

We said “don’t freak out,” when scientists first used Crispr to edit DNA in non-viable human embryos. When...

Blue double stranded DNA helix on light blue background
By Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review | 11.27.2018

Who has the authority to say yes or no to gene-modified babies?

In the mind of He Jiankui, the answer...

Blue double strand DNA on white background
By Eric J. Topol, The New York Times | 11.27.2018

Sooner or later it was bound to happen: A rogue scientist in China claims to have edited a gene in...

Gloved hands moving small test tubes from one test tube rack to another
By Katie Hasson and Marcy Darnovsky, The Guardian | 11.27.2018

The fierce global controversy over whether to alter the genes of future children and generations just got fiercer. On the...

thought bubbles, one with a question mark and the other with an exclamation point
By Lauran Neergaard and Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press | 11.26.2018

Designer babies might be here sooner than anyone reckoned. A Chinese researcher who says he created gene-edited babies crossed what...

cartoon drawing of twin babies
By Sharon Begley, STAT | 11.26.2018

HONG KONG — A Chinese scientist’s claim that he used the genome editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 to alter the DNA of...

A scientific illustration of the HIV-1 virus and the CCR5 gene.
By Nidhi Subbaraman, BuzzFeed | 11.26.2018

HIV researchers are incensed that the first reported use of gene editing in human embryos was aimed at conferring HIV...