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New uses of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to screen embryos prior to transfer raise ethical, legal, and policy issues that deserve close attention. Extensions for medical purposes, such as to [...]

In 1929, Charles B. Davenport, Director of the Biological Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor in New York, co-published Race Crossing in Jamaica, a 512-page study on the 'problem of race [...]

PUT yourself in the following position: you are a woman whose mother and aunt both died from breast cancer, so you know that it may be genetic. You have just [...]

WHEN news of Dolly the cloned sheep made the world headlines, few realized that the company who claimed it created Dolly was also engaged in field trials in Tauranga, Aotearoa [...]

IMAGINE a pig with human genes. Or perhaps you'd prefer a featherless chicken, a self-shearing sheep or an animal that doesn't mind being eaten. All these and more may soon [...]

Every person in the world is just like every other person in the world in the same way that a classic symphony is just like a popular hard rock hit. [...]

I still possess somewhere a paper napkin bearing the seal of the vice-president of the United States, purloined from Air Force L. Two while writing a profile of Dan Quayle [...]

The spectre of new biological weapons made possible by the mapping of the human genome makes it more urgent than ever to prevent biotechnology research from being hijacked for evil [...]

Except for the three million human brain cells injected into his cranium, XO47 is just an average green vervet monkey. He weighs about 12 pounds and measures 34 inches from [...]

Imagine that you have heart failure. What can medicine do for you? It depends: are you white or black? If you're white, your doctor may prescribe one of the drugs [...]

We are wrestling with a profound medical and moral challenge: whether, and under what circumstances, the federal government should use your tax dollars to finance research on stem cells derived [...]

Issue casts long shadow in halls of government and in Vatican, obscures counter right to health Mark Waymack made an important contribution to the stem cell debate with his focus [...]

One of the difficulties in this age of technology that develops faster than ethicists are able to ponder its implications is just finding a way to think about it. Where [...]

In his testimony before the National Bioethics Advisory Commission on stem cell research, Gilbert Meilaender urged the commission to be honest in its recommendations. If you endorse federal funding of [...]

The Human Genetic Blueprint Has Been Drafted, Offering Both Perils and Opportunities for the Environment. THE BIG QUESTION: Are We Changing the Nature of Nature? Princeton University microbiologist Lee M. [...]

TWO SCIENTIFIC TEAMS, one public and one private, jointly announced in June that their researchers, working separately, had deciphered the human genetic code. Elation in the scientific community and extensive [...]

The technology for holding and molding the stuff of life has advanced from research science through development engineering to standard commercial products in less than 100 years and is surging [...]

Although humanity's growing direct mastery of the genetic stuff of life gives us the power to modify our biological selves, mold the human genome, and radically alter the environment, that [...]

Genetic engineering is providing radically new approaches to fighting disease, enhancing agricultural productivity, making commercially valuable products, and cleaning up pollution. The desire to improve our world is inherently human. [...]

SCIENTISTS HAVE BEEN COLLECTING BLOOD, tissue and hair samples from indigenous peoples around the world as part of the Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP). The Project is a US-funded effort [...]

Cloning Trevor, a story about therapeutic cloning research, appeared in the June issue of The Atlantic Monthly. The story gives a human face to the people whom therapeutic cloning could benefit. It presents an argument for government funding and it puts the usual calls for a moratorium on embryonic stem cell research to allow for more debate, in a less favourable light. The story also highlights some problems with ethical oversight., With access to Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), a biotechnology company doing therapeutic cloning, science writer and former biotech researcher Kyla Dunn followed the case of Trevor Ross, a two year [...]

With recent advances in molecular genetics, there has been a surge in interest in using stored blood samples for genetic research, even though informed consent at the time of blood [...]

The new human genetic technologies are arguably the most consequential technologies ever developed. Many applications have great potential to prevent disease and alleviate suffering, but others would open the door [...]

The Diversity Project purports to study the genetic makeup of non-Europeans, but critics claim such research would crassly exploit indigenous peoples -- 'colonialism on the molecular level.' It is unusual [...]

The advance of genetics continues apace, but will it be accompanied by advances in ethics? There is cause for skepticism. Fertility doctors at Baylor College of Medicine have announced a [...]

The UK Biobank, an organisation that plans to collect genetic data from half a million volunteers aged 45-69, has launched a draft ethics and governance framework to address concerns such [...]

Sometimes intellectual debates can become very emotional very quickly. Twice I've been involved in something close to a shouting match over whether it is acceptable to test stored body specimens [...]

Unexpected outcomes, chance and serendipity have always been significant in scientific progress. Science is such a hopeful enterprise partly because we cannot know or control everything beforehand. Something new or [...]

Last spring World Watch interviewed South African writer Nadine Gordimer on her concerns about human genetic engineering. World Watch: Last year, in Durban, you gave a speech at the U.N. [...]

Leading authorities in the United Kingdom have recommended that the government consider changing legislation to allow the cloning of human cells for therapeutic research but have reiterated their support for [...]

The American social psychologist Kurt Lewin found that the best way to change attitudes was to get people to argue out opinions contrary to the ones they actually held. I [...]