Dear John,

The Center for Genetics and Society is on the cusp of an exciting new chapter. After 13 intense, challenging, and deeply fulfilling years as executive director, I will be retiring at the end of this month. Katie Hasson, currently CGS’ associate director, will step into the executive director role on September 1. 

These changes have been in the works for some time. I’ve had the great pleasure and good fortune of working in partnership with Katie since 2017, and I can’t imagine a better person to take the helm. 

With a wide circle of support – from our staff and long-time consultants, Advisory Board members, key funders, and close colleagues – we are ensuring that the coming transition will be seamless and smooth. With your ongoing commitment, CGS will continue to grow our already outsized impact in confronting the social and eugenic implications of human genetics and assisted reproduction.

The Center for Genetics and Society has long led the way in efforts to put social justice and human rights at the center of public and political developments related to eugenics, “designer babies,” and other abuses of human biotechnologies. That work is more urgent now than at any point since Richard Hayes and I established the Center for Genetics and Society back in 2001. 

As I wrote in a recent blog post about the proliferation of startups that want to develop human embryo editing or that claim to select embryos for intelligence and other traits:

“We’ve entered a new and more alarming phase in the struggle to orient human biotechnologies toward the common good, and to prevent their use in the service of a resurgent eugenics based in market incentives, genetic essentialism, and technological recklessness. It’s time to step up the opposition.”

With the stakes higher than ever, CGS is ready to do just that – expanding and strengthening coalitions of like-minded organizations, advocates, and scholars; pushing back on resurgent eugenic logics in media narratives and political discourse; working to safeguard and spread policies that currently prohibit heritable genome editing in more than 70 countries. 

I hope you will join me in continuing to back CGS and our shared fight for a fair and inclusive future.

It’s been an honor and a privilege to spend the last 25 years collaborating with dedicated and hard-working staff, a smart and strategic advisory board that will continue to guide our efforts, and a truly stellar circle of colleagues. 

We are grateful for your support and for all you do.

With warm wishes,

Marcy Darnovsky