The Center for Genetics and Society brings social justice and human rights to the center of public and policy discussions about human genetics and assisted reproduction.

Featured

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

Aggregated News

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

Aggregated News

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

Aggregated News

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

A "Post-Human" Future?

Trump’s Eugenic Fantasies

By Pete Shanks | 10.08.2024
Biopolitical Times

“Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore 
is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

On October 7, Donald Trump’s long-standing...

Civil Society

Biopolitical Times

Trump’s Eugenic Fantasies

By Pete Shanks | 10.08.2024

“Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore 
is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

On October 7, Donald Trump’s long-standing...

Civil Society

Human Biotech is in the News: We Need to Talk

By Pete Shanks | 09.25.2024

Reproductive rights have been a flashpoint in national politics for decades, with the stakes surging after the Supreme Court shredded...

Assisted Reproduction

Update on Polling about Human Biotechnologies

By Pete Shanks | 08.26.2024

It has been for years a truth universally acknowledged that heritable human genome editing – “designer baby” technology –  should...

Biopolitics

News

IVF will be covered by insurance for many Californians after Newsom signs bill

By Mackenzie Mays, Los Angeles Times | 10.29.2024

SACRAMENTO —  Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill on Sunday that requires large health insurance companies to cover in vitro fertilization — a win for reproductive health advocates amid nationwide concerns about the future of access to fertility treatments.

The bill also...

Policies

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 Drugmakers Did Not Tell Volunteers in Alzheimer’s Trials

By Walt Bogdanich and Carson Kessler, The New York Times | 10.23.2024

By 2021, nearly 2,000 volunteers had answered the call to test an experimental Alzheimer’s drug known as BAN2401. For the drugmaker Eisai, the trial was a shot at a windfall — potentially billions of dollars — for defanging a disease...

Patents & Other IP

“Give Cas a Chance”: Fyodor Urnov Says He Wants a CRISPR Revolution

By Kevin Davies , Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News | 10.22.2024

In an extraordinary 6,000-word guest editorial in the October 2024 issue of The CRISPR Journal (a sister journal of GEN, published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.), Fyodor Urnov, PhD, laid out the urgent case for major reform in the...

Genetic Selection

Video
Reproduction and Family Formation: The State and the Market
Use Gene Editing to Make Better Babies | Debate | Intelligence Squared U.S.
The 'Perfect' Baby?: The Dangers of Gene Editing in Assisted Reproduction