A toddler in Ukraine has three genetic parents. An NPR report from Rob Stein tells the story of a 31-year-old woman in western Ukraine who went through years of IVF treatments before finding a trailblazing fertility clinic.
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Year: 2018
Authors & resources to guide us through the dawning age of genetics
Ipromised in my new thriller "Biohack" that I'd do something rarely seen in crime fiction: provide a bibliography-like list of resources I relied on during the months I spent researching the science behind the novel. I'll do that below, and in part two I'll also include a list of bioethics experts who've begun wrestling with…
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Golden State Killer brings power of DNA testing to fore
If you've had the feeling that DNA has been in the news a lot in recent weeks, you'd be right. The latest sensational use of a new generation of genetic technologies occurred late last month when the person suspected of being the Golden State Killer was ensnared by a relative's use of a genealogy site.…
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Employees signing up for genetic testing in droves
The New York Times has a thought-provoking piece out headlined, Employees Jump at Genetic Testing. Is That a Good Thing? It's a good question. The article begins: Levi Strauss & Company introduced a novel benefit for employees at its San Francisco headquarters last fall: free genetic screening to assess their hereditary risks for certain cancers…
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Bringing back the woolly mammoth with ancient DNA
We couldn't help but notice the headline in the British tabloid the Daily Mail the other day: "Woolly mammoths could come back to life and SAVE the Arctic: Harvard cloning scientist is using DNA from a 42,000-year old carcass to see the Ice Age species rise from the dead." Especially because there's a scene in…
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Countering the threat of bioweapons
The May-June 2018 issue of Foreign Policy magazine includes an in-depth report titled, “The New Killer Pathogens" about the coming bioweapons threat.
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