CGS in the News

US startup charging couples to ‘screen embryos for IQ’

By Hannah Devlin, Tom Burgis, David Pegg, and Jason Wilson, The Guardian [cites CGS’ Katie Hasson] | 10.18.2024

A US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement.

The company, Heliospect Genomics, has worked with more than a dozen couples undergoing...

Genetic Selection

South Africa amended its research guidelines to allow for heritable human genome editing

By Françoise Baylis and Katie Hasson, The Conversation | 10.24.2024

A little-noticed change to South Africa’s national health research guidelines, published in May of this year, has put the country on an ethical precipice. The newly added language appears to position the country as the first to explicitly permit...

Policies

What Do You Risk With At-Home DNA Test Kits?

By Ashleigh Wyss [cites CGS' Katie Hasson], Listnr | 10.09.2024

Discovering your genetic history can be as simple as spitting into a test tube, but what happens when your data...

Society
Abstract design of several double helices crossing over each other against a black background.

Is Gene Editing Out of Control?

By The Inquiry, BBC [features Marcy Darnovsky] | 07.16.2017

"This structure has novel features, which are of considerable biological interest." It was perhaps the greatest understatement of all time...

Human Genetic Modification
A wall displays letters " ATCG" in various colors.

CRISPR DNA Editing Can Cause Hundreds of Off-Target Mutations

By Dave Roos, Seeker [cites Marcy Darnovsky] | 06.06.2017

A new study offers a cautionary tale for using the widely hyped gene-editing tool CRISPR on people.

The gene-editing technology...

Bioethics
Embryo, with 5 visible cells.

Scientific Panel Says Editing Heritable Human Genes Could Be OK In The Future

By Rob Stein, NPR [cites Marcy Darnovsky] | 02.14.2017

Scientists could be allowed to make modifications in human DNA that can be passed down through subsequent generations, the National...

Bioethics
Against a shirt with black and gold stripes, a sticker reads "Do you care?" in a thought/speech bubble.

Written evidence for the Genomics and Genome-Editing Inquiry of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee

By Edward Hockings and Lewis Coyne, Ethics and Genetics [cites CGS] | 01.20.2017

KEY POINTS

  • UK biosciences policy has become increasingly motivated by economic considerations in recent years, at the expense, we believe...
Human Genetic Modification
A traffic light appears yellow to signify caution (rather than a green go, and a red stop)

The Promise and Peril of Emerging Reproductive Technologies

By Ekaterina Pesheva, Harvard Medical School [cites Marcy Darnovsky] | 01.11.2017

In vitro fertilization has transformed reproductive medicine and sparked a number of therapeutic and diagnostic breakthroughs.

Now a new, still...

Animal Biotechnologies
A wooden-like figure of a child builds a colorful tower of blocks. The child sits in a background surrounded by white and black checkered flooring.

2016 Fear vs Hope: Gene Editing— Terrible turning point?

By Pete Shanks, Deccan Chronicle | 01.01.2017

The next year may represent our best chance to prevent the rise of a modern, uncontrolled and dangerously ill-considered techno-eugenics...

Human Genetic Modification

Rethinking/transcending the red-blue, left-right, secular-religious and related divides, domestically and globally

By Richard Hayes, U .C. Berkeley College of Natural Resources/Energy and Resources Group | 02.25.2013

This short note introduces the third topic I want to address during my time at ERG this year. It follows...

Technologies