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...

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...

Image of pharmaceutical bottles and pills scattered across a black surface.
By Maggie Fox, NBC News | 07.25.2018

Home DNA test results from the 5 million customers of 23andMe will now be used by drug giant GlaxoSmithKline to...

Lettuce plants grown indors in white containers.
By Ewen Callaway, Nature | 07.25.2018

Gene-edited crops should be subject to the same stringent regulations as conventional genetically modified (GM) organisms, Europe’s highest court ruled...

Digital illustration of DNA; painted blue on a darker blue background.
By Katherine Lindemann, Research Gate | 07.23.2018

A study released last week suggests that the gene editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 may not be as precise as previously thought...

An image of in vitro fertilization in black and white.
By Heidi Ledford, Nature | 07.23.2018

By 2100, in vitro fertilization (IVF) might account for 3.5% of the global population — some 400 million people...