Search Results for: designer babies

Austen Heinz of Cambrian Genomics Interview: GMO creatures & people

Austen-Heinz

What’s Cambrian Genomics? With rapid advances in genomics, gene editing, and methods to reproduce life in the lab such as cloning, today creating genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has never been easier. While there have been of course loads of discussions of GMOs in the past, we are entering a new era of what one might […]

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Unapologetic He Jiankui eager for more human germline gene editing with help from tech bros

He Jiankui lab, He Jiankui

For a few years, biophysicist He Jiankui might have been one of the most recognizable scientists on the planet. He made three “CRISPR babies” or gene edited people. However, his gene editing went badly and as best as we can tell his efforts did not result in precision edits. It’s unclear if he had institutional

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Weekly reads: artificial wombs, mice with rat brains, Neuralink

artificial wombs

It feels like we are marching towards a future in which key aspects of human reproduction, including the use of artificial wombs, could be substantially different than for most of history. The FDA is considering allowing a clinical trial for use of artificial wombs in people. Human trials of artificial wombs could start soon. Here’s

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‘We don’t want to freak people out’: about that Jacob Hanna human embryo model startup

Jacob Hanna Renewal Bio

Stem cell biologist Jacob Hanna has a new startup called Renewal Bio. Its goal is to harvest cells or tissues from human embryo or fetus models for clinical use. I believe that their commercial ambitions have so far outstripped careful thought and discussion in the broader community of researchers. There are major risks here for

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Grading my 21 stem cell & regenerative medicine predictions for 2021

stem-cell-crystal-ball-300x3001

The world of stem cell research and regenerative medicine is unpredictable but it’s fun to be a part of it and try to do predictions. Each year in late December or early January I make prognostications for the coming year for stem cell research and regenerative medicine. I made 21 such predictions for the current

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Weekly reads: escape to New York, CRISPR baby patents, ISSCR guidelines, pubs

the high line in manhattan

My to-read list this weekend includes a range of papers along with various news & media including a report of two US research groups aiming to get CRISPR baby patents. More on that below. At long last a trip + fun thing to do in NYC Last week I took my first trip in more

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20/20 vision? The Niche’s 20 stem cell & regenerative medicine predictions for 2020

The-Niche-stem-cell-predictions-2020

Every year in December and early January I do a post predicting some key events for the stem cell and regenerative medicine field for the upcoming year and today’s post contains my predictions for 2020. You can see my past 2019 predictions along with my grades for them here. I gave myself a B+ for

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Is monkey cloning a breakthrough or a bad idea?

Monkey-clones

Is monkey cloning a good idea? We’re about to find out. A new Cell paper today reports the first cloning of monkeys via somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), raising many questions. The paper from a team led by Qiang Sun is entitled, “Cloning of Macaque Monkeys by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer.” The highlight bullet points

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