News

These companies help parents try to pick their babies' traits. Experts are wary

By Rob Stein, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 05.06.2026

Justin Schleede reaches onto a black lab bench to pick up a tray of small plastic tubes.

"These are saliva samples as well as blood," says Schleede, a geneticist who runs Herasight Inc.'s lab in Morrisville, N.C. "We also...

Genetic Selection

The Measured Listener

By Daniel Shanahan, Los Angeles Review of Books | 05.31.2026

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...

U.S. States

The start-ups dreaming of creating genetically modified babies

By Alexandre Piquard, Le Monde [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 05.22.2026

"If proven to be safe, we believe preventive gene editing could be one of the most important health technologies of...

U.S. Federal

Natural Election

By Jonathan Basile, Los Ángeles Review of Books | 04.29.2026

WILLIAM BATESON, a foundational figure in the science of genetics at the turn of the last century, once recounted the...

Society

How a Billionaire’s ‘Baby Project’ Ensnared Dozens of Women

By Jackie Davalos and Sophie Alexander, Bloomberg | 12.02.2024

^{Photo by CDC on Unsplash}

As Anya walked into the fertility clinic for an appointment to have her eggs retrieved...

U.S. States

An I.V.F. Mix-Up, a Shocking Discovery and an Unbearable Choice

By Susan Dominus, The New York Times | 11.30.2024

In the days after Daphna Cardinale delivered her second child, she experienced a rare sense of calm and wonder. The...

Assisted Reproduction

FDA probes blood cancer risk from Bluebird’s gene therapy, weighs regulatory action

By Christy Santhosh, Reuters | 11.27.2024

Nov 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is weighing the need for regulatory action on bluebird bio's ...

Genomics

Silicon Valley’s tech elite want to make superbabies. They shouldn’t

By Julia Brown and Daphne Martschenko, The San Francisco Standard | 11.23.2024

“Pronatalist” parents like Simone and Malcolm Collins want it all: optimized babies – lots of them.

To achieve this goal...

Genetic Selection

Who should get a uterus transplant? Experts aren’t sure.

By Jessica Hamzelou, MIT Technology Review | 11.22.2024

Earlier this year, a boy in Sweden celebrated his 10th birthday. Reproductive scientists and doctors marked the occasion too. This...

Assisted Reproduction

The Horrors of Hepatitis Research

By Carl Elliott, The New York Review of Books | 11.21.2024

^{Photo "Traces of Willowbrook" by Matt Green on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)}

In academic medicine, as with Confederate statuary...

Society

WHO releases new principles for ethical human genomic data collection and sharing

By World Health Organization, World Health Organization | 11.20.2024

The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a set of principles for the ethical collection, access, use and sharing of...

Policies

He has already fathered many children. Now Musk wants all of the US to embrace extreme breeding

By Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian | 11.19.2024

^{Photo "Elon Musk Presenting Tesla's Fully Autonomous Future" by Steve Jurvetson on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)}

Is Elon Musk...

Genetic Selection