Articles and Commentary

I have my parents, and biotechnology, to thank for bringing me into this world; I was an IVF baby. Given this intimate connection with technology and test tubes, you might think I'd be a cheerleader for all developments in...

Robert G. Edwards might not be a household name, but the innovation he pioneered along with Patrick Steptoe certainly is. In vitro fertilization (IVF), the process whereby human eggs are fertilized outside of the body and the resulting embryos implanted...

Has Google gone right off the deep end? It's common for techies to be infatuated with transhumanism and other far-out ideas, but "solving death" seems like a real stretch. And yet that's what the megacompany's latest initiative is apparently meant...

Polio ravaged much of the United States during the 20th century, leaving thousands sick, paralyzed, and dead. Those who were not afflicted with the virus were constantly haunted by the terror that their loved ones—particularly children, who were most vulnerable—would...

Last month, California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have allowed researchers to pay women for having their eggs harvested and retrieved. His move was warmly welcomed by women's health and public interest groups including Our Bodies Ourselves...

SAN FRANCISCO — WHEN the police arrived last November at the ransacked mansion of the millionaire investor Raveesh Kumra, outside of San Jose, Calif., they found Mr. Kumra had been blindfolded, tied and gagged. The robbers took cash, rare coins...

The UK government’s recent move towards human trials of mitochondrial-replacement techniques has prompted intense interest among scientists and bioethicists, while the media continue to frame mitochondrial replacement as a matter of ‘three-parent babies’. The description is accurate — it would...

Hitzige Diskussionen darüber, wie wir unser schnell wachsendes Wissen über Genetik nutzen könnten, begannen lange vor der „Entschlüsselung“ des menschlichen Genoms. Die damaligen Spekulationen über genbasierte Fortschritte reichten von Hoffnungen, alle Arten von Leiden zu kurieren, bis hin zur grandiosen...