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
six vials of blood in a yellow stand

How Widespread Prenatal Testing for Microdeletions Can Hurt Patients and Why the Genetic Testing Industry Needs More Accountability

By Katie Stoll, Gene Cuisine | 01.04.2022

image "Blood Samples" by Daniel Sone from the website of the National Cancer Institute

The New York Times published an important...

Biopolitics
"Stop forced sterilization" poster

California Will Compensate Survivors of Eugenics’ Forced Sterilizations

By S.E. Williams, Black Voices News | 01.03.2022

On New Year’s Eve California Governor Gavin Newsom announced another important action in the state’s ongoing effort to redress historical...

Society
Cover of "The Genetic Lottery" by Kathryn Page Harden

Does it really matter if you win or lose the genetic lottery?

By Joseph L Graves Jr, The Lancet | 01.01.2022

Kathryn Paige Harden, Professor of Psychology who leads the Developmental Behavior Genetics lab at the University of Texas at Austin...

Genetic Selection
a pregnant woman in exam room talks to man in white coat w/ clipboard

When They Warn of Rare Disorders, These Prenatal Tests Are Usually Wrong

By Sarah Kliff and Aatish Bhatia, The New York Times | 01.01.2022

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

After a year of fertility treatments, Yael Geller was thrilled when she found out she...

Assisted Reproduction

The USDA’s new labeling for genetically modified foods goes into effect Jan. 1. Here’s what you need to know.

By Laura Reiley, The Washington Post | 01.01.2022

The goal was to get rid of the patchwork of different labels for foods and ingredients that have been scientifically...

Policies
sickled and round red blood cells

First sickle cell patient treated with CRISPR gene-editing still thriving

By Rob Stein, NPR | 12.31.2021

"Sickle cell disease (SCD)" by National Institutes
of Health (NIH) is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

For more than a...

Human Genetic Modification
Images of cells, including sickle cell

Sickle Cell Math Is Brutally Simple, but Not Widely Taught

By Gina Kolata, The New York Times | 12.28.2021

OpenStax College, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

No doctor ever counseled Lametra Scott and her husband, Rickey Buggs...

Genetic Selection

Your DNA Test Could Send a Relative to Jail

By Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, The New York Times Magazine | 12.27.2021

On any given day, CeCe Moore’s inbox is flooded with strangers asking her to solve the mysteries of life and...

Bioethics