News

During his 2015 State of the Union address, then-President Barack Obama announced what he promised would be an ambitious public health project. “Tonight, I’m launching a new Precision Medicine Initiative to bring us closer to curing diseases like cancer and diabetes...

This is the 15th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring the history of eugenics and the ways it shapes our present. You can read the first part here. The series...

Justin Schleede reaches onto a black lab bench to pick up a tray of small plastic tubes.

"These are saliva...

"If proven to be safe, we believe preventive gene editing could be one of the most important health technologies of...

By Eric Lander, Françoise Baylis, Feng Zhang, Emmanuelle Charpentier, Paul Berg et al., Nature | 03.13.2019

We call for a global moratorium on all clinical uses of human germline editing — that is, changing heritable DNA...

Ultrasound of child with down syndrome
By George J. Annas, Science | 03.10.2019

In 2011, poet and writer George Estreich wrote about the impact of biotechnology on family life in his first book, ...

Family tree with 7 generations
By Tim Flannery, The New York Review of Books [Cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 03.07.2019

Tracing genealogies has become immensely popular of late, and numerous companies offer to help you search through historical records or...

A gloved hand holds a large syringe that is partially filled with bone marrow
By Kate Sheridan, STAT | 03.04.2019

For the second time, doctors appear to have put HIV into “sustained remission” with a stem cell transplant — effectively...

eggs under microscope
By Amanda Mull, The Atlantic | 03.04.2019

One of the Instagram ads for Extend Fertility, a New York–based egg-freezing service for women, presents two images. First, there’s...

Two parents holding a baby
By Rich Gardella and Erika Edwards, NBC News | 03.04.2019

A Facebook post was what alerted Katelynn Gurbach to a massive tank malfunction at University Hospitals Fertility Center near Cleveland...

Gloved hand holding DNA results with dyed purple columns on clear plate
By Carl Zimmer, The New York Times | 03.01.2019

One night in November 1999, a 26-year-old woman was raped in a parking lot in Grand Rapids, Mich. Police officers...

Chinese flag
By Dennis Normile, Science | 02.28.2019

In the wake of the shocking news that one of its scientists had produced genetically altered babies, the Chinese government...