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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...

Sketch of a tree with a sign at the top that says "Eugenics"
By Samantha Young, The Washington Post | 04.25.2018

Rosie Zaballos liked to host playtime tea parties and was sweet to everyone she met. But her older brother worried...

goved hands press a newborn's foot to a card to collect a blood sample
By Eric Boodman, STAT | 04.25.2018

As soon as she saw her baby, Sarah Yaroch knew. Her father had the disorder, as did her nephew...

Two hands shaking with black sleeves and a computer and notepads in the background.
By Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times | 04.24.2018

One day last March, Kristin Comella took to the podium at a conference sponsored by the Academy of Regenerative Practices...

Soft yellow background with two double helices next to each other made out of dark green dots on the outside and light green dots on the inside.
By Kathleen Pierce, Nursing Clio | 04.24.2018

The direct-to-consumer genetic testing company 23andme has recently been described by journalist Erika Check Hayden as a “unicorn.”1 For...

Black and white image of a large house on a plain plot of land that says at the bottom in small letters "Virginia state colony for epileptics and feeble-minded"
By Jennifer Schmidt and Thomas Lu, NPR | 04.23.2018

The day was June 4, 1924. A dark-haired girl, just 17 years old, was admitted to the Virginia State Colony...

Double stranded helix inside a building with windows surrounding it.
By Deborah Netburn, Los AngelesTimes | 04.23.2018

Biology textbooks may be due for a rewrite.

For the first time, scientists have detected a DNA structure inside living...

A pair of hands are typing on a laptop computer with lines of code across it. There is a black mug with white writing on it in the background of the picture.
By Megan Molteni, Wired | 04.20.2018

Almost exactly a year ago, 23andMe earned the right to tell people what diseases might be lurking in their DNA. Since then...

A women with blonde hair and a white lab coat is sitting at a lab bench plating bacteria on a red medium agar plate.
By Veronique Greenwood, Quanta Magazine | 04.19.2018