In late November, He Jiankui, a scientist in China, announced that he had created the first “CRISPR babies,” meaning that he performed germ-line genome edits on human embryos, which were implanted through in vitro fertilization (IVF), and has now resulted the birth of twin girls. He used CRISPR-Cas9, a genome editing technology that can target DNA at precise …
Tag Archives: Scientific Research
After and Beyond the Genome: Taking Postgenomics Seriously
The Postgenomic Condition: Ethics, Justice, and Knowledge after the Genome
University of Chicago Press, 2017, 304 pages.
Genetics: A Situated View
How enduring is the love affair between our societies and genetics (today genomics)? And what is the role of critical social science in undermining or, rather, mirroring the power of this romance? And what do we …
Laboratory capacity building and the open hardware movement
This article is part of the series: Diagnostic stories
Through my work in African laboratories I am regularly made aware of the challenging equipment shortages faced by research laboratories in many low/middle-income countries (LMICs). This extends far beyond the absence of “state-of-the-art” equipment and shiny, new models regularly produced by commercial companies. These shortages include the availability of what would normally be considered ubiquitous laboratory equipment – PCR machines, …
Web Roundup: In the clouds
As I’m sure many of you saw, this month started with the successful launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, giving a boost (sorry) to privatized space travel, and providing us all with a few days of very strange photos. On that note, here is a Web Roundup about flight, flying objects, and clouds of all kinds.
Staying with the …
Web Roundup: Grand Not-So-Unified Theory of Birth Control Side-Effects
Recently, a number of news outlets reported the results of a new research study on the correlation between hormonal contraceptives and breast cancer. The study analyzed data from several Danish national health registers, following 1.8 million women between 15 and 49 years of age. Previous studies of breast-cancer risk among women who use hormonal contraceptives reported inconsistent findings – from …
Web Roundup: Gender and Health
Nothing seems to be more self-evident than gender differences, and yet when we have to establish what these differences are, things seem to become complicated. Is it the reproductive system that clearly determines if we love pink or blue? Perhaps it is the endocrine system? Or is it the genes that are different?
Feminist research started decades ago to build …