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...

Blue human stem cell
By William Wan and Laurie McGinley, The Washington Post | 02.27.2019

After years of back pain, Timothy Lunceford decided in July to try an injection of umbilical cord blood, an unproven...

Blue strand of double helix DNA on black background
By Natalie Kofler, Nature | 02.26.2019

Millions were shocked to learn of the birth of gene-edited babies last year, but apparently several scientists were already in...

He Jiankui in a lab
By Jane Qiu, STAT | 02.25.2019

BEIJING — Three government institutions in China, including the nation’s science ministry, may have funded the “CRISPR babies” study that...

Double helix strand of DNA with backbone that is orange and bases that are green
By Carl Zimmer, The New York Times | 02.21.2019

In 1985, the chemist Steven A. Benner sat down with some colleagues and a notebook and sketched out a way...

Blue outline of human with detailed brain, in a web of connecting lines
By Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review | 02.21.2019

The brains of two genetically edited girls born in China last year may have been changed in ways that enhance...

Three test tubes nect to gloved hand
By Sui-Lee Wee, The New York Times | 02.21.2019

BEIJING — The authorities called it a free health check. Tahir Imin had his doubts.

They drew blood from the...

Pregnant woman with hands on her stomach
By Marta Rodriguez Martinez and Rachael Kennedy, Euro News | 02.20.2019

The Spanish embassy in Ukraine announced on Tuesday that the Spanish government had decided to begin rejecting registrations for babies...

Class of kindergartners and three teachers holding up paper turkeys
By Michael Standaert, MIT Technology Review | 02.19.2019

In Shenzhen, even kindergartners have homework. You can see it in the workbook-laden backpacks weighing them down as they waddle...