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This is Ask An Expert, where every weekday at 9:20am, KCBS Radio is giving you direct access to top experts in various fields. Today: Gene-editing technology allows scientists to work with DNA in unprecedented ways, but there are larger scientific...

For months, a small company in San Francisco has been pursuing a secretive project: the birth of a genetically engineered baby.

Backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, along with Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, the startup—called...

Pronatalism is an old idea with roots in eugenics and nationalism, that is now fashionable among far-right influencers and policymakers. They talk...

This is the 10th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring...

Four transparent panels displaying letters "ATCG (representing DNA bases).
By Sharon Begley, STAT | 06.26.2017

For all the promises of genomics ushering in a new era in medicine, with scientists regularly urging people to get...

A laboratory scientist, in goggles, and protective gear, holds a pipette and concentrates on placing a sample of liquid into a test tube.
By Jim Petro, Cincinnati- USA Today Network | 06.19.2017

As a state legislator, I served on the House committee that drafted Ohio’s current death penalty law. Later, as Ohio...

An unused 23andMe kit, displayed with box open and containing specimen bag, cotton swab, and vile container.
By Jessica Cussins, The Pharmaceutical Journal | 06.19.2017

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has, for the first time, granted permission to a company to provide limited...

Photo of Charpentier presenting, with a picture of microscopic cells in the background.
By Sarah Buhr, Tech Crunch | 06.19.2017

Continuing the patent dispute internationally, China has now given the Charpentier/Doudna side a patent to edit genes in the country.

CRISPR...

Portrait photo of a Cambodian woman smiling, while sitting on the ground.
By South China Morning Post | 06.18.2017

Peeling a mango inside her rickety wooden shack, Chhum Long explained how her daughter’s decision to nurture a Western couple’s...

The Earth in orbit, with one side illuminated by the sun, and the other side in darkness.
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff, New York Times | 06.17.2017

There’s a well-to-do couple thinking about having children. They order a battery of genetic tests to ensure that there’s nothing...

Two pigs, in a barn, gaze directly at the camera.
By Angela Chen, The Verge | 06.16.2017

The road to growing organs in pigs is paved with ethical questions

In 2003, a South Korean company called Maria...

A double helix diagonally positioned as if it were moving. Small speckles surround it.
By Ed Young, The Atlantic | 06.16.2017

Three Stanford scientists have proposed a provocative new way of thinking about genetic variants, and how they affect people’s bodies

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