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

In science, follow the money – if you can

By Paul D. Thacker & Curt Furberg, The Los Angeles Times | 05.12.2016
Untitled Document

In science as in politics, most people agree that transparency is essential. Top journals now require authors to...

Bioethics
Kendall Square, Cambridge, Mass. (Flickr)

After rivals’ IPOs, will CRISPR Therapeutics go public or stay buttoned-down?

By Damian Garde, STAT | 05.12.2016
Untitled Document

It has a license to one of the biggest scientific advances in history, and its rivals have made...

Human Genetic Modification
Paul Cézanne. Pyramid of Skulls, oil on canvas, c. 1901.

Meet The Scientists Fighting For More Studies On Genes And Racial Differences In Health

By Peter Aldhous, BuzzFeed | 05.11.2016
Untitled Document

Esteban Burchard is pissed. He’s angry that people of color are being sidelined by a medical revolution spawned...

Genetic Selection

Three Cambridge startups are on a mission to fix broken genes

By Robert Weisman, The Boston Globe | 05.11.2016
Untitled Document

A trio of startup companies rooted in the local life-sciences community is focusing on a task long seen...

Human Genetic Modification

Is academic achievement written into your DNA? It’s complicated

By Sharon Begley, STAT | 05.11.2016
Untitled Document

The largest study of its kind has found 74 genetic variants that influence how many years of school...

Bioethics

Should We Synthesize A Human Genome?

By Drew Endy and Laurie Zoloth, DSpace@MIT | 05.10.2016

At Harvard today an invitation-only group of mostly scientists, lawyers, and entrepreneurs, ~150 in total, met to discuss if and...

Human Genetic Modification
A woman and child stand in front of Sri Harmandir Sahib aka the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India. (Pixabay)

Indian woman gives birth at ~70 with help of IVF

By Andrew Marszal, The Telegraph [UK] | 05.10.2016
Untitled Document An Indian woman has given birth to her first child at the age of 72 after undergoing fertility...
Bioethics

What the man in the street thinks about human enhancement

By Michael Cook, BioEdge | 05.07.2016
Untitled Document

What does the American public think about human germline enhancement? A survey of 17 polls taken over the...

Synthetic Biology