Articles and Commentary

Five years ago, on November 25, 2018, the world learned that a rogue Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, had created the first children whose DNA had been tailored using gene editing before they were born. They were twins, code-named “Lulu” and...

September, 1921 was unusually hot and New York was sweltering. For the many immigrants who crowded the city's tenements and pavements, one of the few places for relief from the incessant heat was the American Museum of Natural History. That...

The COVID pandemic has placed new hurdles to having a child through surrogacy, complicating international surrogacy in particular by restricting travel, delaying birth certificates and visas, and introducing specific considerations about safety and well-being. In addition, the pandemic has created...

The “CRISPR babies” announced in headlines around the world recently turned two years old, and we still know nothing about their health or wellbeing. Debates continue about whether the societal risks of heritable genome editing are too great to proceed...

At a time of budget crisis, Proposition 14 commits California to spending $5 billion (plus interest) that we don’t have, on a bureaucracy we don’t need, in pursuit of cures no one can guarantee. 

Specifically, Prop. 14 would refinance the...

Abstract

Discussions and debates about the governance of human germline and heritable genome editing should be informed by a clear and accurate understanding of the global policy landscape. This policy survey of 106 countries yields significant new data. A large...

In November 2018, at a gene-editing “summit” hosted by scientific societies from the U.S., the U.K., and Hong Kong, a Chinese researcher announced that he had created the world’s first genetically modified babies. He Jiankui fully expected to be celebrated...