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 on blue hospital bed
By Steph Yin, The New York Times | 10.05.2018

Lamb stew, hearty and fragrant, cooked until meat falls off the bone and served alongside thick, chewy noodles — this...

Black cricket standing on dirt/gravel
By Emily Baumgaertner | 10.04.2018

Within the Defense Department, one agency’s recent project sounds futuristic: millions of insects carrying viruses descend upon crops and then...

Human embryo on blue background
By David Cyranoski, Nature | 10.03.2018

Japan has issued draft guidelines that allow the use of gene-editing tools in human embryos. The proposal was released by...

Process of IVF--blue egg being injected on blue background
By Pamela Tsigdinos, Marie Claire | 10.01.2018

Shortly after her 40th birthday, Sarah Chamberlin and her husband Julio interviewed reproductive endocrinologists at four different clinics in...

Child getting his mouth swabbed by woman wearing red scrubs
By Jamie Williams AND Hayley Tsukayama, Electronic Frontier Foundation | 09.28.2018

California's kids now have common-sense protections against unwarranted DNA collection. Gov. Jerry Brown this week signed A.B. 1584, a...

Mosquito on skin with green background
By Michael Nedelman, CNN | 09.25.2018

Researchers have rendered a population of mosquitoes in a lab sterile using the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 by homing in on...

White pencil made out of a strand of DNA, on a blue background
By Catherine Bliss, Zocalo Public Square | 09.25.2018

Over the past 25 years, we’ve become surprisingly comfortable with the idea that genes play a large role in our...

Red and yellow musical symbols on red background
By Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic | 09.25.2018

Genetic-ancestry tests are having a moment. Look no further than Spotify: On Thursday, the music-streaming service—as in, the service used...