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

The New Artificial Intelligentsia

By Ruha Benjamin, Los Angeles Review of Books | 10.18.2024

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

A "Post-Human" Future?

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
Drawing of a heart

This family carried a rare mutation that should have been lethal. What was keeping them alive?

By Eric Boodman, STAT | 02.15.2022

Patrick J. Lynch, medical illustrator,
CC BY 2.5 >, via Wikimedia Commons

The result didn’t make sense. The researcher kept...

Genomics
SFPD at street demo

San Francisco police linked a woman to a crime using DNA from her rape exam, D.A. Boudin says

By Megan Cassidy, San Francisco Chronicle | 02.14.2022

Photo of SFPD by Steve Rhodes (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) 

Update: D.A. Chesa Boudin has dismissed the case against...

Policies
Close-up of baby's torso

First gene therapy for Tay-Sachs disease successfully given to two children

By Miguel Sena-Esteves, The Conversation | 02.14.2022

Two babies have received the first-ever gene therapy for Tay-Sachs disease after over 14 years of development.

Tay-Sachs is a...

Stem Cells
Protest against sterilization

‘There’s no amount of money that can take away how I felt’: California pays reparations to survivors of state-sanctioned sterilizations

By Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle | 02.11.2022

It’s been almost 20 years since a botched surgery while she was incarcerated, but Gabby Solano still mourns the bleak...

U.S. Federal

Wrestling with the Legacy of Eugenics

By Jennifer Rainey Marquez, Georgia State University Research Magazine | 02.08.2022

A century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision that legal scholars generally consider to be among the...

U.S. States
Cover of the NWLC Sterilization report

More than half the country has laws that allow forced sterilizations: new report

By Shirin Ali, The Hill | 02.07.2022

A new report is highlighting forced sterilization laws across the U.S. and how the practice specifically affects disabled people, taking away...

U.S. States
Eric Lander

Top White House scientist resigns after review finds he demeaned staff

By Tyler Pager, The Washington Post | 02.07.2022

"Keynote speaker Eric Lander 1" by afagen 
is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Eric Lander, President Biden’s top science...

Genomics
Alice Wong making a presentation

Disabled activist speaks out about feeling ‘disposable’ during pandemic

By Rachel Scheier, San Francisco Chronicle | 02.05.2022

Alice Wong, activist, research consultant and media maker

In early January, one of the country’s top public health officials...

Media Coverage