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

Eugenics and the Nihilism of Law-and-Order Politics

By Terence Keel, Los Ángeles Review of Books | 09.06.2026

Aggregated News

This is the 16th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring the history of eugenics and the ways it shapes our present. The series is organized by Osagie K. Obasogie in...

U.S. States

Reviews of Two Books Wrestling with Genomics

By Pete Shanks | 08.28.2026
Biopolitical Times

What We Inherit by Sam Trejo and Daphne O. Martschenko; and Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden have a great deal in common, with substantial differences in style and emphasis. Both books attempt, in different ways, to show the reader just where current research into human genomics stands, where that might be going, and why the authors are interested. In short, the influence of genomic research on our societies is already large and seems likely to change them in ways...

Human Genetic Modification

Taking a closer look at recent reporting on gene-edited embryos

By Katie Hasson | 07.11.2026
Biopolitical Times

Media coverage of recent developments in embryo gene editing might seem to suggest that gene-edited babies are close to becoming...

Genomics

Palantir Has a Hand in NIH’s Most Ambitious Health Initiative

By Julia Métraux, Mother Jones [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 07.07.2026

Aggregated News

During his 2015 State of the Union address, then-President Barack Obama announced what he promised would be an ambitious public health...

U.S. Federal

Biopolitical Times

Reviews of Two Books Wrestling with Genomics

By Pete Shanks | 08.28.2026

What We Inherit by Sam Trejo and Daphne O. Martschenko; and Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden have a great...

Human Genetic Modification

Gene therapy trial characterised by hype and hubris ends in a child's death

By Claire Robinson and Jonathan Matthews, Guest Contributors | 08.25.2026

This is an excerpt of an article originally published on August 1, 2026 at GMWatch.

A six-year-old girl has...

U.S. Federal

Taking a closer look at recent reporting on gene-edited embryos

By Katie Hasson | 07.11.2026

Media coverage of recent developments in embryo gene editing might seem to suggest that gene-edited babies are close to becoming...

Genomics

News

Racist pseudo-science still shapes Australian politics

By Marcia Langton, National Indigenous Times | 09.22.2026

Pauline Hanson speaking about Aboriginal people on a white Christian podcast last year said "they're the most primitive race on Earth and we're supposed to be holding them up and saying what they've achieved? They've achieved nothing." She resurrected the...

Biopolitics

Supreme Court Order Gives Parents Custody of Baby in Surrogacy Fight

By Ann E. Marimow and J. David Goodman, The New York Times | 09.22.2026

Justice Elena Kagan on Tuesday refused to intervene in a high-profile custody battle that involved difficult questions surrounding surrogacy and abortion, leaving in place a lower-court order that gave custody to the biological parents in the dispute.

The case drew...

Policies

Embryo screening and the new reproductive divide

By Gaia Ghirardi, Arno Van Hootegem & K. Paige Harden , Nature Human Behaviour | 09.21.2026

Embryo screening for behavioural traits is no longer speculative. If you want to become a parent in the USA today, you can pay to use pre-implantation polygenic testing (PGT-P) of in vitro fertilization (IVF)-created embryos. PGT-P promises to optimize offspring...

Genetic Selection

'Epigenetic' editing is here: gene-tagging technique banishes hepatitis B virus

By Miryam Naddaf, Nature | 09.21.2026

A wave of epigenetic therapies is offering hope as ways to cure chronic hepatitis B — a lingering liver infection that is caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV) and affects more than 250 million people around the world. Currently...

Human Genetic Modification

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