Pete Shanks
The Olympics of the future: Transhumanist-supported Enhanced Games recognizes world records achieved with drug use, steroids and stimulants
Peter Thiel and two other venture capitalists, Christian Angermayer and Balaji Srinivasan, are now funding “the Olympics of the future.” ...
Viewpoint: ‘Artificial intelligence poses a whole new threat to the already dangerous practice of heritable human genetic modification’
Artificial intelligence poses a whole new threat to the already dangerous practice of heritable human genetic modification ...
Viewpoint: Center for Genetics and Society advances ‘progressive’, ‘techno-pessimist’ argument against human germline editing
AI is a hot topic that some experts deeply steeped in the AI debate are warning about the social justice ...
Viewpoint: ‘Hipster eugenics’ — The ethical case against using personalized genetics to choose embryos
The techno-utopian credos known as “effective altruism” and “longtermism” have recently gained wide notice, judging by Google searches, news articles, ...
Drawing a line: European Convention upholds ban on heritable human genome editing
The Council of Europe’s Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, better known as the Ovideo Convention, explicitly bans heritable human ...
Genetically modified babies? Turkish-based medical tourism company says they can help you make one
Heal2Go describes itself as “an innovative medical travel platform” with a mission “to make medical traveling easier… We’re working on ...
Viewpoint: Did the New York Times blunder in its analysis of non-invasive prenatal blood test (NIPT) limitations?
On January 1st, The New York Times website prominently featured a substantial piece of investigative journalism about a relatively new ...
The first child selected as an embryo on the basis of its ‘polygenic risk score’ is now 16 months old
The first child acknowledged to have been selected as an embryo on the basis of its “polygenic risk score” is ...
Viewpoint: Political left, right and sprinkling of bioethicists express concern about modifying rules on embryo research
On May 26, the International Society of Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), a non-governmental organization of scientists, released newly revised guidelines ...
Viewpoint: Patenting human embryo gene editing? Two rival universities push the ethical and legal debate
Two prominent groups of scientists, and two major American universities, are trying to patent methods for editing human embryos, with ...
Quickly-advancing human embryo research raises prickly ethical questions
Nature published two peer-reviewed papers about generating in vitro, with slightly different methods, “blastoids” or “human blastocyst-like structures”... Notably, none ...
Viewpoint: Why assisted reproduction needs to be more comprehensively regulated
The United States fertility market is growing very rapidly, and is projected to reach $15.4 billion in 2023, more than ...
Viewpoint: How might the Biden Administration regulate heritable human gene editing?
The new Biden-Harris Administration faces a number of harrowing challenges in which science and technology policies will be critical. Along ...
Viewpoint: Public confused and divided about genetically engineering diseases out of babies
Here’s a provocative headline and subhead from OneZero, a publication by Medium, above an article by Emily Mullin published on August 17: Men Are ...
Coronavirus highlights why the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act is ripe for overhaul
[Palantir] has been hired and has assigned 45 staff to a project “designed to predict surges in NHS demand during the ...
Problems emerge in US direct-to-consumer stem cell clinic market
Leigh Turner and Paul Knoepfler recently published an important paper in Cell Stem Cell on stem cell clinics in the US. Turner is a University of ...
Has three-person IVF put us on the slippery slope of germline genetic engineering?
On Tuesday February 3, the UK House of Commons voted in favor of legalizing mitochondrial donation. The British press headlined it ...
In retrospect, Obama’s personalized medicine initiative is nothing new
In the State of the Union speech delivered on January 20, President Obama made the first announcement of what seems ...
Custom DNA advocate rejects regulation of synthetic biology
Austen Heinz of Cambrian Genomics has been trolling hard lately, as blogger Josh Cunningham notes. That is, he's been spouting ...
UK Parliament begins discussion of “3-parent IVF”
The British government continues to move toward legalizing a form of inheritable genetic modification that would combine eggs or embryos ...
Examining California stem cell agency’s shady business ties
Alan Trounson, until very recently president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), has accepted a position on the ...
Call for integrity for stem cell research amid global controversy
Scientists around the world are campaigning in favor of sensible regulation of stem-cell therapies. We have two reactions: (1) kudos ...
Bum knees? Sports stars like CC Sabathia find success in experimental stem cell treatments
CC Sabathia, a starting pitcher for the New York Yankees, is making $23 million this year, and the same or ...
Hopes and fears surround new induced stem cell method
Two papers published in Nature on January 30 describe a new and remarkably simple technique for generating pluripotent cells: cells ...
Direct-to-consumer genetic testing just not ready for prime time
Stories keep coming in from people who signed up for genetic testing and received strange, conflicting, or just plain wrong ...
Scientists alarmed by so-called stem cell “therapies”
The dubious business of selling so-called stem cell "therapies" seems to be gathering momentum, and some scientists are becoming quite ...
UK education advisor faces criticism for possible advocation of eugenics
For many, the term "eugenics" conjures images of Nazi-run concentration camps and other horrific instances of science gone wrong. So, ...
Sex-selective abortions becoming hot button issue in UK and US
On September 5, the London Daily Telegraph ran not one, not two, but seven stories about sex-selective abortions (1, 2, ...
