News

Developments in gene-editing technology raise new ethical questions

By [cites CGS' Katie Hasson], KCBS Radio | 11.19.2025

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...

U.S. Federal

Genetically Engineered Babies Are Banned. Tech Titans Are Trying to Make One Anyway.

By Emily Glazer, Katherine Long, Amy Dockser Marcus, The Wall Street Journal | 11.08.2025

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...

Genetic Selection

Who Gets to Procreate and Parent? A Black Feminist Critique of the Pronatalist Agenda

By Jallicia A. Jolly, Sydney Curtis and Nicole Sessions, Ms. Magazine | 10.17.2025

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

U.S. Federal

Does One Size Fit All?

By Jay S. Kaufman, Los Angeles Review of Books | 09.27.2025

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

Society

A man dressed in scrubs peers into a large microscope-like device and examines a specimen.

UK doctors to seek permission to create baby with DNA from three people

By Ian Sample, The Guardian | 11.30.2016

Specialists poised to offer mitochondrial replacement therapy if government’s fertility regulator approves the treatment

Doctors will seek permission this month...

Human Genetic Modification

"3-Parent Baby" Procedure Faces New Hurdle

By Karen Weintraub, Scientific American | 11.30.2016

A promising technique to prevent mothers from passing on devastating mitochondrial diseases was thrown a biological curve ball this week...

Bioethics

Steve Bannon’s disturbing views on 'genetic superiority' are shared by Trump

By Laurel Raymond, Think Progress | 11.28.2016

Former Breitbart head Steve Bannon has been a national lightning rod ever since he was appointed CEO of Donald Trump’s...

Biopolitics

A genome sequence printed inside of a book.

Should We Rewrite the Human Genome?

By Alex Harding, Xconomy | 11.28.2016

Scientists are engineering a new living thing: a radically modified version of the lowly bacterium E. coli. In an ...

Genomics

'No solid evidence' for IVF add-on success

By Deborah Cohen, BBC Panorama | 11.28.2016

Nearly all costly add-on treatments offered by UK fertility clinics to increase the chance of a birth through IVF are...

Civil Society

A flow of money is falling against a plain black background.

What’s behind those billion-dollar biotech deals? Often, a whole lot of hype

By Damian Garde, STAT | 11.28.2016

It was a good day for UniQure, a Dutch biotech company at work on gene therapies for rare diseases. A...

U.S. States

Illustrative image of DNA strands and molecules.

Do Your Family Members Have a Right to Your Genetic Code?

By Emily Mullin, MIT Technology Review | 11.22.2016

When a woman gets her genome sequenced, questions about privacy arise for her identical twin sister.

In August 2015, Samantha...

Bioethics

Silhouette of a pregnant body is shown, with their face pointed down and holding their stomach.

Cambodia charges Australian nurse for running surrogacy clinic

By Prak Chan Thul, Reuters | 11.21.2016

A Cambodian court charged an Australian nurse on Monday for allegedly operating an illegal fertility clinic, police said, weeks after...

Global Governance