Megan Molteni reports on discoveries from the frontiers of genomic medicine, neuroscience, and reproductive tech. She joined STAT in 2021 after covering health and science at WIRED. You can reach ...

A Chinese scientist horrified the world in 2018 when he revealed he had secretly engineered the birth of the world's first gene-edited babies. His work was reviled as reckless and unethical because, ...

Scientists from a collaboration of Australian research institutions have proposed that editing multiple genetic variants in ...

In a few decades, gene-editing technologies could reduce the likelihood of common human diseases. Societies must use this time to prepare for their arrival. Read the paper: Heritable polygenic editing ...

In 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui shocked the world when he revealed that he had created the first gene-edited babies. Using Crispr, he tweaked the genes of three human embryos in an attempt to ...

Designer babies may sound like science fiction, but they’re becoming increasingly possible as gene editing technology to treat and prevent genetic diseases evolves. How scientists should use it is a ...

Around 2018–19, there was not a bigger science and ethical story than the debate over heritable human genome editing (HHGE) and the scandal over the “CRISPR babies.” The scientist, He Jiankui, who ...

An international group of gene editing leaders has put out a call for a 10-year ban on heritable human genome editing (HHGE), extending a moratorium that was first proposed in the fallout of a Chinese ...

San Francisco-based startup Preventive has raised nearly $30 million from investors, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, to develop embryo gene-editing technology aimed ...

In today’s installment of “hey please don’t do that,” the Wall Street Journal reports that a clandestine startup named Preventive is trying to usher in the first known birth of a genetically-modified ...

A major medical milestone took place in May 2025, when doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia used CRISPR-based gene editing to treat a child with a rare genetic disorder. Unlike earlier ...