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...

Two youths--a male and female-- concentrate in a lab procedure. The male holds a pipette. The female holds the sample.
By Amy Dockser Marcus, Wall Street Journal | 02.26.2017

The Crispr technique lets amateurs enter a world that has been the exclusive domain of scientists

Kian Sadeghi has postponed homework...

A baby, sitting inside of a crib, playfully looks to the side. One hand is holding a bar of the crib. Light pours out from a nearby window.
By Lindsay Murdoch, Sydney Morning Herald | 02.26.2017

Up to 10 surrogacy-born babies with Australian biological parents are stuck in legal limbo in Cambodia after a crackdown on...

Double helix angled in the corner
By Francoise Baylis, Impact Ethics | 02.17.2017

Françoise Baylis wonders how it is that in 14 months (from December 2015 to February 2017), the U.S. National Academy

...
A test tube rack is filled with lab samples. A gloved hand picks up one container among them.
By Peter Pitts, Forbes | 02.15.2017

Genetic testing promises a revolution in healthcare. With just a few swabs of saliva, diagnostics can provide an unprecedented look...

By Andrea K. McDaniels, Baltimore Sun | 02.15.2017

The eldest son of Henrietta Lacks wants compensation from the Johns Hopkins University and possibly other institutions for the unauthorized...

Screenshot of Titanovo's testing kit advertisement for measuring telomeres as indicators for health information.
By Kristen V. Brown, Gizmodo | 02.15.2017

Recently, Vitaliy Husar received results from a DNA screening that changed his life. It wasn’t a gene that suggested a...

Two white officers handcuff a young black teen on the side of the police vehicle.
By Kelly Davis, Voice of San Diego | 02.15.2017

When it comes to collecting DNA from criminal offenders, California law is especially protective of juveniles.

While 2004’s Proposition 69...

A statue of two male scientists in lab coats. The figures seem to be connected by holding a strand of DNA.
By Sharon Begley, STAT | 02.15.2017

The US patent office ruled on Wednesday that hotly disputed patents on the revolutionary genome-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 belong to the...