News

Palantir Has a Hand in NIH’s Most Ambitious Health Initiative

By Julia Métraux, Mother Jones [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 07.07.2026

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...

U.S. Federal

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

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...

Genetic Selection

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

Safety Rules Can’t Keep Up With Biotech Industry

By Andrew Pollack and Duff Wilson, New York Times | 05.27.2010
They are the highly trained, generally well-paid employees in the vanguard of American innovation: people who work in biotechnology labs...
U.S. Federal

Do-It-Yourself Genetic Tests

By Donna Dickenson, Project Syndicate | 05.26.2010
If you were hoping to pick up a DNA kit along with your shampoo from the drugstore, you would be...
Biotech & Pharma

UC Berkeley Fends off DTC Genomics Critics; Other Schools Mull Genetic Tests as Educational Tools

By Turna Ray, GenomeWeb | 05.25.2010

[updated May 26]

Going ahead with its plans to offer voluntary genetic testing to incoming freshman, the University...

Genomics

Environmentalists Try to Ban Release of Synthetic Life Forms into The Wild

By Steve Connor, The Independent | 05.24.2010
Environmentalists have begun a concerted campaign to ensure that new forms of "artificial life" are never released into the wider...
Other Countries

Environmentalists Try to Ban Release of Synthetic Life Forms into The Wild

By Steve Connor, The Independent | 05.24.2010
Environmentalists have begun a concerted campaign to ensure that new forms of "artificial life" are never released into the wider...
Other Countries

Freshman Genetic Testing Program Draws Criticism

By Katie Nelson, The Daily Cal | 05.24.2010
UC Berkeley has found itself in the center of a genetics war after it announced last week that its "On...
Genomics

Researchers Say They Created a ‘Synthetic Cell’

By Nicholas Wade, New York Times | 05.21.2010
The genome pioneer J. Craig Venter has taken another step in his quest to create synthetic life, by synthesizing an...
Biotech & Pharma

White House Tackles 'Synthetic Life' Ethics

By GenomeWeb, GenomeWeb News | 05.21.2010

The White House has wasted no time in addressing yesterday's news that scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute have...

Synthetic Biology