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

Huntington’s disease: the new gene therapy that sufferers cannot afford

By Dara Mohammadi, The Guardian [UK] | 05.15.2016

As the small motorboat chugs to a halt, three travellers, wind-beaten from the three-hour journey along the Atrato river, step...

Other Countries

Controversial Italian fertility doctor accused of stealing patient's egg

By Stephanie Kirchgaessner, The Guardian [UK] | 05.15.2016

A controversial Italian fertility doctor who won international fame for helping women in their 60s get pregnant has been arrested...

Human Rights

Female scientist in white lab coat stands in front of a screen with the words "BrightBorn"

Orphan Black emphasizes the science in its sci-fi with a disturbing chapter on eugenics

By Caroline Framke, Vox | 05.15.2016

Every Sunday, we pick a new episode of the week. It could be good. It could be bad. It will...

Eugenics

The disturbing thing that happens when you tell people they have different DNA

By Ana Swanson, Wonkblog [The Washington Post] | 05.13.2016

Untitled Document

The first real interview I ever did was in 1999 in Dubrovnik, Croatia, the white-stone city perched on...

Global Governance

Secret Harvard meeting on synthetic human genomes incites ethics debate

By Joel Achenbach, Washington Post | 05.13.2016

About 150 scientists assembled at Harvard on Tuesday for an off-the-record, no-media-allowed discussion of how to create, from scratch, an...

Civil Society

George Church, professor at Harvard Medical School, was one of the organizers of a closed meeting on synthetic genomes.

Top scientists hold closed meeting to discuss building a human genome from scratch

By Ike Swetlitz, STAT | 05.13.2016

Over 130 scientists, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and government officials from five continents gathered at Harvard this week for an “exploratory” meeting...

Genomics

Locked gates at Harvard Yard during Occupy protests (Wikimedia)

Scientists Hold Secret Meeting to Consider Creating a Synthetic Human Genome

By Andrew Pollack, The New York Times | 05.13.2016

Untitled Document

Scientists are now contemplating the creation of a synthetic human genome, meaning they would use chemicals to manufacture...

Genomics

Federal Microbiome Project Aims to Solve Tiny Riddles of Science

By Gardiner Harris, The New York Times | 05.12.2016

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday will announce the latest in its scientific “moonshots,” this one in the red-hot...

U.S. Federal