Pete Shanks
Pete Shanks, MA, attended Oxford University, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and moved to California in the mid-1970s. He has been active in a range of local and international political movements, while mostly making his living in the publishing industry, especially on the production side; he enjoys the craft of bookmaking. Appalled by the eugenic possibilities of biotechnology, he has consulted with the Center for Genetics and Society since its earliest days. He is the author of Human Genetic Engineering: A Guide for Activists, Skeptics, and the Very Perplexed (Nation Books) and a regular contributor to Biopolitical Times.
Publications
News broke this week that the first “three-parent” baby had been born. But the untested and controversial nature of the...
On May 10, about 130 scientists, entrepreneurs and others held an invitation-only event at Harvard. Organisers told invitees not to...
Money and deals are flowing into companies that promise to edit genes. Human, animal, plant, all kinds of DNA may...
In the News
Let’s Not Distort Debates about Human Cloning and Heritable Gene Editing
Cloning is back in the headlines. Researchers managed to...
The direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing industry has been around for just over a decade. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration...
The next year may represent our best chance to prevent the rise of a modern, uncontrolled and dangerously ill-considered techno-eugenics....
Biopolitical Times
Nature published a commentary on March 13th with the forthright title “Adopt a moratorium on heritable genome editing.”
It was...
Direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies used to focus on ailments and ancestry, and were marketed directly to the people tested. But...
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has now spent almost all of the $3 billion of public funds (which...
Talks and Testimonies
Synthetic Biology Shaping San Francisco hosted a forum titled, "Synthetic Biology: DIY Tinkering Meets Big Capital."
Full video and transcript can be...