Doctors say they can boost the odds donated organs will be usable by restarting blood circulation with a pump after donors are declared dead. Critics say the procedure blurs the definition of death.
This week, the dating app Bumble could not stay out of the news. First, the company launched an anti-celibacy advertising campaign mocking abstinence and suggesting women shouldn't give up on dating apps. Then, at a tech summit, Bumble's founder suggested artificial intelligence might be the future of dating. Both efforts were met with backlash, and during a time when everyone seems irritated with dating - where can people turn? Shani Silver, author of the Cheaper Than Therapysubstack, and KCRW's Myisha Battle, dating coach and host of How's Your Sex Life? join the show to make sense of the mess.
Then, it's been four years since the start of the COVID pandemic. So much has changed - especially attitudes towards public health. Brittany talks to, Dr. Keisha S. Ray, a bioethicist, to hear how public health clashed with American culture - how we're supposed to live among people with different risk tolerance - and what all this means for the next pandemic.
Surgeons transplanted a kidney and thymus gland from a gene-edited pig into a 54-year-old woman in an attempt to extend her life. It's the latest experimental use of animal organs in humans.
Artificial wombs could someday save babies born very prematurely. Even though the experimental technology is still in animal tests, there are mounting questions about its eventual use with humans.
Scientists are optimistic that gene-edited animals could provide a new source of organs for transplantation. Pig organs modified to minimize rejection are now being tested in humans.
An experimental technology that might someday allow infertile couples, as well as gay and trans couples, to have genetically related children stirs hope. So far, the technique has worked in mice.
New companies are working to commercialize in vitro gametogenesis, or IVG, a technology that could make human eggs and sperm in the lab from any cell in the body.
A Mississippi woman's life has been transformed by a treatment for sickle cell disease with the gene-editing technique CRISPR. All her symptoms from a disease once thought incurable have disappeared.
The Third International Summit on Genome Editing concluded Monday with ethicists warning scientists to slow down efforts to use gene-editing to enhance the health of embryos.
A company formed by Harvard genetics professor George Church, known for his pioneering work in genome sequencing and gene splicing, hopes to genetically resurrect woolly mammoths.
An international team has put human cells into monkey embryos in hopes of finding new ways to produce organs for transplantation. But some ethicists still worry about how such research could go wrong.
Getting the COVID-19 vaccine into most Americans' arms will involve much more than a good supply and logistics. Values such as equity, deep listening, and informed choice are crucial, too.
Exposing people to a potentially fatal disease could hasten understanding of COVID-19 and development of new vaccines and treatments. But the risks of such studies raise serious ethical questions.
Researchers are trying to learn more about COVID-19 vaccines from original study participants. The quest is hampered because many people who first received a placebo shot are opting for the vaccine.
Guidance from the CDC on who should be prioritized to get the COVID-19 vaccine was meant to be flexible and inclusive. But "the attempt to have equity created more inequity," says one researcher.
