In a landmark 2013 decision, Maryland v. King, the Supreme Court upheld mandatory DNA collection from arrestees as part of booking procedures, likening cheek swabs to fingerprinting. But 13 years later, renewed public concern about genetic privacy seriously undermines the assumptions underlying King.
On Jan. 24, 2026, the New York Times reported that DNA sequences contributed by children and families to support a federal effort to understand adolescent brain development were later co-opted by other researchers and used to publish “race science” claims about intelligence.
Imagine a clinical trial where the control group never sets foot in a clinic – because they don’t need to, and they don’t have feet. These “participants” are digital twins: computational models of real patients, built from health data to forecast disease trajectories and treatment response.
On May 11, the Israeli Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited ruling in the case known as the “Assuta Embryo Mix-Up.” The case has drawn widespread attention in Israel and abroad — not just because of its heartbreaking facts, but because it forces courts to answer a question that reproductive technology has now raised in…
After Part 1 of this series was published, 23andMe dropped its bid for an independent customer data representative and agreed to the appointment of a privacy ombudsman.
Even with so many major headlines competing for attention last month, it was hard to miss the news that 23andMe had filed for bankruptcy.
Editors: I. Glenn Cohen, Nita A. Farahany, Henry T. Greely, Carmel ShacharPublisher: Cambridge University PressPublication Date: September 2021 This edited volume is based on the Petrie-Flom Center’s 2019 annual conference, which brought together leading experts to explore what ethical and regulatory safeguards should be implemented and discuss the many questions raised by advancements in consumer genetics….
By Donrich Thaldar As the era of genomic medicine dawns, large-scale genomics projects are becoming increasingly central to health care advancements. Projects like FinnGen in Finland, the UK Biobank, and the All of Us initiative in the United States are charting new frontiers in precision medicine, enabling researchers to unlock the genetic codes underlying a…
By Adithi Iyer In February, the news broke that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved a “first of its kind” new cancer therapy. Iovance’s AMTAGVITM, the subject of the approval, is a personalized immunotherapy for advanced melanoma. To be treated, adult patients who are ineligible for surgery or have metastatic disease provide their…
The rise in polygenic embryo screening is ushering in a new era of human control over reproduction.
