News

The National Health Research Ethics Council (NHREC) has confirmed that heritable human genome editing (HHGE) remains illegal in South Africa, after changes in the latest version of the South African Ethics in Health Research Guidelines sparked concern among researchers that...

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...

IN THE FALL OF 2016, I gave a talk at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton titled “Are Robots...

A US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises...

a graphic depicting the selection of a set of DNA elevated over two other sets
By Kristen V. Brown, The Atlantic | 01.15.2025

The first time Jamie Cassidy was pregnant, the fetus had a genetic mutation so devastating that she and her husband...

crops
By GMWatch Staff, GMWatch | 01.14.2025

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

The planned deregulation of new GMOs (new genomic techniques, NGTs) in the EU would...

embryos on a blue background
By Jessica Hamzelou, MIT Technology Review | 01.13.2025

Lisa Holligan already had two children when she decided to try for another baby. Her first two pregnancies had come...

a hand holds one pregnancy test surrounded by several others
By Melissa Dahl, Slate | 01.13.2025

Mia used to say she’d never do in vitro fertilization. It’s a detail that feels significant now, looking back on...

flag of Cambodia
By Tatiana Giovannucci, PET | 01.13.2025

Ten pregnant women and three others with their babies were repatriated to the Philippines after being pardoned by the Royal...

gene wheel, multicolored
By Emily Tucker, Truthout | 01.07.2025

As Donald Trump’s return to the White House looms, dismantling the most dangerous weapons in the arsenal of executive power...

CRISPR graphic
By Jules Adam, Labiotech | 12.18.2024

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the biotech industry seems boundless. Its combination with CRISPR could be the one...