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...

A double helix is stained blue against a black background.
By Ryan Cross, Science Magazine | 05.08.2017

Tuesday morning, more than 200 biologists, businesspeople, and ethicists will converge on the New York Genome Center in New York...

Several filing folders are placed side by side vertically. They have several papers stuffed into them, with old labels around the folder itself.
By Anna Azvolinsky, The Scientist | 05.05.2017

Less than half of completed stem cell studies in humans are published in peer-reviewed journals, according to an analysis of

...
A white baby in a business suit, leans in and points at a laptop screen.
By Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, Neo.Life [cites Marcy Darnovsky] | 05.04.2017

Seeing a thousand of my potential progeny gave me a glimpse of new things that future parents will stress over.

“It...

California state flag and US flag fly together in the blue sky.
By Mike McPhate, New York Times [quotes Marcy Darnovksy] | 05.04.2017

More than a decade ago, Californians made a $3 billion wager on the healing potential of stem cell research.

Today...

Lab entrace to GenSpace for DIY biohackers in New York. The entrance has glass windows covered with stickers and a sign that restricts food and drinks. Behind the entrance lies lab equipment,
By Molly Olmstead, Slate | 05.04.2017

Josiah Zayner is the kind of citizen scientist whom journalists like to write about. He left his job as a...

An illustration of a spiraling clock displaying roman numerals that circulate.
By Erik Parens, Bioethics Forum | 05.04.2017

Is it reasonable to hope that concerns about “cultural harms” can be integrated into oversight mechanisms for technologies like gene...

Bird's eye view of a doctor holding an iPad that contains a DNA sequence. Another person stands pointing specifically to the sequence.
By Adam Roger, WIRED | 05.04.2017

Of all the provisions of the Affordable Care Act—“Obamacare,” if you’re on a first-name basis—the one that seemed...

A woman holds her stomach in pain as a doctor comforts her.
By Robert Winston, Daily Mail | 05.03.2017

This week I feel ashamed. This newspaper has published evidence of widespread bad practice in my own medical speciality, infertility...