June 13, 2025
(Undark) – Jennie Erin Smith’s “Valley of Forgetting” explores the genetics of early-onset dementia plaguing a mountain region. That cause — a hereditary genetic mutation known as E280A — is at the heart of science journalist Jennie Erin Smith’s deeply … Read More
June 12, 2025
(Wired) – House Democrats sent letters to the potential buyers of the genetic testing company, asking how they plan to protect customer genetic data under a change of ownership. Signed by 20 other Democratic members of Congress, the letters—which can … Read More
June 9, 2025
(New York Times) – Screening can now determine their risk for an ever-growing list of conditions — including ones we can’t do much about. Today, that panel checks for unusual bio-markers that may indicate a rare but treatable disease like … Read More
June 5, 2025
(MIT Tech Review) — Brian Armstrong, the billionaire CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, says he’s ready to fund a US startup focused on gene-editing human embryos. If he goes forward, it would be the first major commercial investment in … Read More
June 2, 2025
European Journal of Human Genetics (vol. 33, no. 5, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
May 29, 2025
(Wired) – Customs and Border Protection has swabbed the DNA of migrant children as young as 4, whose genetic data is uploaded to an FBI-run database that can track them if they commit crimes in the future. THE UNITED STATES … Read More
May 28, 2025
(NPR) – A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer, obesity, autism, bipolar disorder, even celiac disease. These conditions are informed by many genetic variants and environmental factors … Read More
May 27, 2025
(The Guardian) – Case of man carrying rare genetic variant fuels calls for limit on number of children that can be fathered by one donor The sperm of a man carrying a rare cancer-causing mutation was used to conceive at … Read More
May 26, 2025
Journal of Medical Ethics (vol. 51, no. 5, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
May 23, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – You may not be familiar with Tie, but she’s no stranger to the public spotlight. A former Thiel fellow, she is a partner in the attention-grabbing Los Angeles Project, which promised to create glow-in-the-dark pets. Over … Read More
May 22, 2025
(New Scientist) – Despite a huge media fanfare in which Colossal Biosciences claimed to have resurrected the extinct dire wolf, the company’s chief scientist now concedes that the animals are merely modified grey wolves The dire wolf is “the world’s … Read More
May 22, 2025
(Gizmodo) – The pharmaceutical company bought “substantially all” of 23andMe’s business for $256 million. Genetic testing company 23andMe isn’t going away, despite declaring bankruptcy. The company and nearly all of its assets, including its biobank of customer genetic samples, have … Read More
May 19, 2025
HEC Forum (vol. 37, no. 2, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
May 15, 2025
(New York Times) – The technique used on a 9½-month-old boy with a rare condition has the potential to help people with thousands of other uncommon genetic diseases. The baby, now 9 ½ months old, became the first patient of … Read More
May 14, 2025
(BBC) – A new treatment approach can significantly improve survival rates for patients with aggressive, inherited breast cancer, a study suggests. The trial, led by Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, and published in Nature Communications, involved women with early-stage breast cancer … Read More
May 13, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Microbes can produce compounds that affect the way neurons work. They also influence the functioning of the immune system, which can have knock-on effects on the brain. And they seem to be able to communicate with … Read More
May 13, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – The CRISPR patents are back in play. On Monday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier will get another chance to show they ought to own the … Read More
May 12, 2025
Hastings Center Report (vol. 55, Issue 2, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
May 8, 2025
(NPR) – In the new book, Second Life: Having A Child In The Digital Age, Hess writes about how technology shapes every aspect of parenting — from our online identities to the pressures of sharing our lives in real-time. “I … Read More
May 7, 2025
(New York Times) – As China and the United States trade charges of a lab leak, researchers contend in a new paper that the Covid pandemic got its start, like a previous one, in the wildlife trade. In a study … Read More
May 6, 2025
(NPR) – President Trump issued an executive order Monday restricting federal funding for research that involves a controversial field of scientific study known as “gain-of-function” research. The research, which is also known as “dual-use” research, involves experimenting with viruses and … Read More
May 5, 2025
European Journal of Human Genetics (vol. 33, no. 4, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
May 2, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Most pigs in the US are confined to factory farms where they can be afflicted by a nasty respiratory virus that kills piglets. The illness is called porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, or PRRS. A few … Read More
April 28, 2025
(The New Yorker) – When the writer Amanda Hess was twenty-nine weeks pregnant with her first child, her doctor, looking at an ultrasound, “saw something he did not like.” He suspected a rare genetic condition; Hess underwent an amniocentesis and … Read More
April 21, 2025
(BBC) – Genetic factors are thought to play a major role in the development of autism – but for decades what they are has proven elusive. Now scientists are starting to uncover clues. But while this can offer huge benefits … Read More
