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Don’t miss this compelling look at “the brave new world of genetic engineering” with two live virtual shows, May 15-16. CGS’ Marcy Darnovsky, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, and Lea Witkowsky will discuss the play following Saturday’s performance.
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Cathy Sakimura and Emily Galpern, Men Having Babies | 05.12.2021
The COVID pandemic has placed new hurdles in the path to having a child through surrogacy, especially when crossing borders is involved, by restricting travel, delaying birth certificates and visas, and introducing specific safety considerations. It is imperative for intended parents contemplating surrogacy to consider how to do so ethically during the pandemic, given heightened health risks and the impacts of COVID precautions.
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Karen Weintraub, USA Today | 05.02.2021
Some scientists say extending human embryo research to 28 days could lead to important breakthroughs. But CGS’ Marcy Darnovsky said efforts to overturn the 14-day rule are another example of scientific overreach. "There's a real problem with scientists who are jumping ahead of the public."
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GENE EDITING | GENE THERAPY | ASSISTED REPRODUCTION |
EUGENICS | VARIOUS
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Stuart A. Newman, Counterpunch | 05.05.2021
Recent, widely reviewed books accept the baseless premise that gene modification of human embryos can be done safely. But developmental biology has shown that embryos cannot be reliably engineered. Even so-called single-gene traits are established with the participation of dozens or hundreds of other genes often acting in compensatory fashions.
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Derya Ozdemir, Interesting Engineering | 05.03.2021
The “Retron Library Recombineering” (RLR) technique produces up to millions of mutations concurrently in bacterial cells and “barcodes” mutant cells, enabling the whole pool to be screened at once. RLR is a simpler, more flexible gene-editing tool than CRISPR-Cas9, and can be used for highly multiplexed experiments.
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Wynne Parry, Philadelphia | 05. 08. 2021
The rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines using mRNA or DNA highlights recent advances in the use of genetic material as medicine. CAR-T therapies for cancer treatment and new gene therapies for hemophilia and heart disease are in the works, and gene editing with CRISPR is close to clinical trials.
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Amy Dockser Marcus, The Wall Street Journal | 05.07.2021
In the next decade, Crispr-Cas9 and other new gene-editing techniques may protect the health of millions of people with a range of conditions, including familial hypercholesterolemia, chronic pain and diabetes. Rather than take drugs for years or even decades, at-risk people might be able to protect themselves with a one-and-done Crispr therapy.
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Diana Kwon, Nature | 05.05.2021
Hopes were high for drugs designed to lower levels of a mutant protein, but development has stalled, dealing a crushing blow to those affected by the disease. Two pharmaceutical companies have halted clinical trials of gene-targeting therapies for Huntington’s disease (HD), following the drugs’ disappointing performance.
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Megan Molteni, STAT | 05.03.2021
The biotech startup wants to accelerate testing of unproven anti-aging medicines and views U.S. drug safety regulations as a hindrance. The effort raises the specter of an overseas medical tourism industry targeting patients desperate to lengthen their lives and offering unproven treatments that would permanently alter the genetic code inside recipients’ cells.
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Ellen Trachman, Above the Law | 05.05.2021
Greg Blosser, convicted after conning 44 clients who had hoped to become parents through surrogacy, was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison and $1,194,519.54 restitution.
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Joseph Dunstan, ABC News (Australia) | 05.03.2021
Researchers found that 82 percent of 1,590 women surveyed had used an additional treatment while undergoing IVF. The most common add-on treatments were acupuncture, pre-implantation genetic testing of embryos, and Chinese herbal medicine. Costs for these extras were between AU$300 and $3000, but the evidence base for the treatments was "rather weak."
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Douglas Perry, The Oregonian | 05.10.2021
Bethenia Owens-Adair was one of Oregon’s first practicing women doctors and a heroine of the state’s women’s-rights movement. She also led the charge resulting in Oregon’s 1917 eugenic sterilization law, which was responsible for forced sterilizations of more than 2600 women and men.
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Lester Golden, Medium | 05.10.2021
When people repeatedly announce who they are in their own words, listen. The core of Nazi ideology is racial darwinism, the belief that humanity is divided into a hierarchy of inferior and superior races. Trump has repeatedly advertised that he subscribes to this core belief of Nazism; here is a collection of his statements.
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Cristina Escobar, Refinery29 | 04.30.2021
The film takes us back to what happened in Los Angeles when doctors performed tubal ligations on Latinas, specifically targeting mothers who were undergoing emergency C-sections.
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Lindsey Tanner, AP | 05.11.2021
The American Medical Association’s plan has been in the works for more than a year. The group’s leaders said health inequities highlighted by the pandemic, ongoing police brutality, and recent race-based crimes have given the effort a sense of urgency. Some critics, however, remain skeptical that reforms will be implemented quickly enough.
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Hannah Thomasy, NEO.LIFE | 05.06.2021
Tweaking the genes of wild animals could save endangered species and protect humans from disease. What could possibly go wrong? As scientists and bioethicists have pointed out, many seemingly beneficial genetic changes could have catastrophic consequences.
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Amy Maxmen, Nature | 04.28.2021
Scholarship on the social determinants of health has been growing for decades, but real moves to fix the underlying problems are complex, politically fraught, and rare. Can COVID push science to finally address the issue? The tumultuous coronavirus response in California's San Joaquin Valley provides some clues.
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