Pete Shanks
Pete Shanks, MA, attended Oxford University, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and moved to California in the mid-1970s. He has been active in a range of local and international political movements, while mostly making his living in the publishing industry, especially on the production side; he enjoys the craft of bookmaking. Appalled by the eugenic possibilities of biotechnology, he has consulted with the Center for Genetics and Society since its earliest days. He is the author of Human Genetic Engineering: A Guide for Activists, Skeptics, and the Very Perplexed (Nation Books) and a regular contributor to Biopolitical Times.
Publications
Five years ago, on November 25, 2018, the world learned that a rogue Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, had created the...
At a time of budget crisis, Proposition 14 commits California to spending $5 billion (plus interest) that we don’t have...
In mid-July, a bipartisan trio of U.S. Senators—Democrats Dianne Feinstein of California and Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Republican...
In the News
Image by NIH Image Gallery from Flickr
The Biopolitical Times reported this month that the California stem cell and gene...
The first medicine based on gene editing, a one-time therapy for sickle cell disease, was just approved in the...
Five years ago, on November 25, 2018, the world learned that a rogue Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, had created the...
Biopolitical Times
On January 8, 2025, Nature published an article titled Heritable polygenic editing: the next frontier in genomic medicine? (The term...
Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
It is hard to make predictions, especially about the future, as Yogi Berra, Niels...
Flag of South Africa; design by Frederick Brownell,
image by WikimediaCommons users.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
What is...
Talks and Testimonies
Synthetic Biology Shaping San Francisco hosted a forum titled, "Synthetic Biology: DIY Tinkering Meets Big Capital."
Full video and transcript can be...