News

The quest to create gene-edited babies gets a reboot

By Rob Stein, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 08.06.2025

A Chinese scientist horrified the world in 2018 when he revealed he had secretly engineered the birth of the world's first gene-edited babies.

His work was reviled as reckless and unethical because, among other reasons, gene-editing was so new...

Genetic Selection

Baby Bonuses and Motherhood Medals: Why We Shouldn’t Trust the Pronatalist Movement

By Staff, National Women's Law Center | 08.13.2025

INTRODUCTION

Baby bonuses. Motherhood medals. Fertility tracking. You may have heard of these policy proposals as solutions from the Trump administration to help encourage women to have more children.

Besides falling short of ensuring that people have what they need...

Human Genetic Modification

We Don’t Know if the Babies Born From Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy Will Still Develop Mitochondrial Disease

By Katherine Drabiak, Journal of Medical Ethics Forum | 08.07.2025

^{Adapted from Mitochondrial DNA at

National Human Genome Research Institute}

Recently, media outlets around the world have been reporting on...

Assisted Reproduction

Can doctors test embryos for autism? And should they?

By Brittany Luse, Liam McBain, and Neena Pathak, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 05.28.2025

A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer...

Genetic Selection

a multicolor DNA strand dissolving onto a yellow background

The DNA Test Delusion

By Kristen V. Brown, Bloomberg | 05.14.2024

Answers to our greatest questions, we were told about a decade ago, could be ours if we just spat in...

Patents & Other IP

A ‘miracle cure’ for deafness? For people like me, here’s why that isn’t our dream

By Oliver James Campbell, The Guardian | 05.13.2024

As someone who has been hard of hearing since I was a teenager, I read with great interest about the...

Society

Man is shown typing on his laptop analyzing various data visualizations, such as pie charts, line graphs and bar graphs.

Americans overwhelmingly say access to IVF is a good thing

By Gabriel Borelli, Pew Research Center | 05.13.2024

^{Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash}

The political debate around access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) intensified this year, following...

U.S. Federal

Image shows a pediatrician with short blond hair inspecting a baby's right ear.

Deaf baby hears for the first time after ‘groundbreaking’ gene therapy trial

By Victoria Bisset and Adela Suliman, The Washington Post | 05.09.2024

^{Photo by CDC from Unsplash}

A baby girl born with profound genetic deafness can now hear unaided after receiving a...

Human Genetic Modification

A gay couple couldn’t access IVF benefits. They’re suing New York City.

By Maham Javaid, The Washington Post | 05.09.2024

^{"New York City Hall" by Aude is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 DEED}

New York City is denying...

Policies

After CRISPR baby scandal shut down work for years, China gene editing companies are restarting clinical trials

By Ryan Cross, Endpoints News | 05.08.2024

A half-decade after a scientist’s reckless experiment with human embryos put a stop to much of China’s clinical work on...

Human Genetic Modification

Boy Dosed with Pfizer DMD Gene Therapy Dies a Year after Phase II Trial

By Alex Philippidis, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News | 05.07.2024

Pfizer has paused enrollment in a Phase III trial assessing its Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) gene therapy candidate fordadistrogene movaparvovec...

Patents & Other IP

rendering of ivf process with Petri dish

The Parents Who Want Daughters—and Daughters Only

By Emi Nietfeld, Slate | 05.07.2024

Amy Yin always envisioned having at least two daughters. She spent her 20s working as an engineer and founding...

Assisted Reproduction