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...

Image taken from the front of a lecture hall facing the empty seats.
By Daniel Engber, Slate | 07.31.2018

On May 18, W. French Anderson, known as the “father of gene therapy,” was released from prison on parole. Two...

An individual uses a sringe to extract fluid from a medical vial.
By Donna Dickenson, Project Syndicate | 07.31.2018

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ recent endorsement of human genome editing has drawn fire from experts – including at least...

Group of employees laboring over assembly line.
By Stuart A. Newman, Counterpunch | 07.31.2018

Human civilization has taken an important turn with the publication of a new report by the Nuffield Council, the semi-official...

Image of an aisle in a storage hacility with binders/boxes of numbered material.
By Tony Romm and Drew Harwell, Washington Post | 07.31.2018

Ancestry, 23andMe and other popular companies that offer genetic testing pledged on Tuesday to be upfront when they share users’...

Image is of stained cells (blue) highlighting diseased mitochondria (red).
By Radhika Viswanathan, Vox [Cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 07.28.2018

When scientists discover a new way to prevent disease or overcome infertility, they usually get applauded. But throw genetic engineering...

Image of a possum climbing a small tree over a snow-covered ground.
By Amy Dockser Marcus, The Wall Street Journal | 07.27.2018

In recent years, scientists have begun using the gene editing tool Crispr to experiment in the laboratory with altering embryos...

Image of a newborn baby being handled by a nurse.
By Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, Stat | 07.27.2018

I was 15 in 1978 when Louise Joy Brown’s birth captured the world’s attention. Still new to monthly menstrual cycles...

An individual crouches down on a lab counter to get a better look at the sample at hand.
By Cary Funk and Meg Hefferon, Pew Research Center | 07.26.2018

Americans’ views on the appropriateness of changing a baby’s genetic characteristics depend in large part on the intended purpose and...