‘Very little yield’: has genetically targeted medicine really made us healthier?
Billions were sunk into the promise of treatments personalised to the individual. Now many believe the money might have been better spent on public health interventions
January 2023
The human genome needs updating. But how do we make it fair?
Healthcare’s standard genome is mostly based on one American. As we enter the era of personalised medicine, this bias has drawbacks for much of the world’s population
March 2022
First complete gap-free human genome sequence published
More than 20 years after milestone of first draft, missing sections of sequence have been completed
June 2021
20 years after the human genome was first sequenced, dangerous gene myths abound
Philip Ball
Misleading rhetoric has fuelled the belief that our genetic code is an ‘instruction book’ – but it’s far more interesting than that, says science writer Philip Ball
June 2020
‘The wondrous map’: how unlocking human DNA changed the course of science
Thanks to the success of the Human Genome Project, 20 years ago this week, scientists can track biology and disease at a molecular level
February 2019
Sue Povey obituary
Molecular geneticist who was a leading contributor to the Human Genome Project
December 2018
Medical advances could soon spare patients surgery, say experts
Better drugs, vaccination and genomics will help to make some operations obsolete
November 2018
Sir Aaron Klug obituary
Chemist and biophysicist who won the Nobel prize for developing crystallographic electron microscopy
March 2018
Sir John Sulston obituary
Sir John Sulston, pioneering genome scientist, dies aged 75
February 2018
How can I make money from my DNA?
If you have your DNA sequenced, someone somewhere will be making money from the data. A new start-up aims to make sure that you get your share
August 2017
The Guardian view on adjusting DNA: a new world
Editorial: A hope that embryos could be purged of a genetic disease has been fulfilled in part. However, we are some way off reimplanting modified embryos into their mothers – for all the right reasons
October 2016
Science Weekly
Ethics and genetics: opening the book of life – Science Weekly podcast
When it comes to the ethics of genetic technologies who decides how far we should go in our pursuit for perfection?
September 2016
A Brief History of Everyone who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford review – genes, race and rewriting the human story
This effervescent book contains the latest thinking on the African origins of Homo sapiens and asks what our genes can really tell us
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived review – popular science at its best
Adam Rutherford’s elegant account of the Human Genome Project brings a note of realism to our dreams of a medical revolution
Self and wellbeing
Why our DNA isn’t the whole story of ourselves
The human genome is a tale of family, famine, disease and sex – no wonder it’s so gripping, says Adam Rutherford
June 2016
We’ve learned to read our genes. Now we need to start writing them
Susan Rosser
To understand our genetic code more fully, we need to build one to see the role of the genes and how they can change
May 2016
'As long as we study life, it will be read': the Selfish Gene turns 40
In 1976 Richard Dawkins’s study of evolutionary theory became the first popular science bestseller. How do its ideas stand up today?
April 2016
Who needs sex to make babies? Pretty soon, humans won’t
Henry Greely
Within decades, technology will give would-be parents choices that sound like the stuff of science fiction. What ‘easy PGD’ won’t give you though, is a super-baby
March 2016
Oliver James is dangerously wrong to blame parents for their children’s mental illness
Deborah Orr
To completely discount inheritability of faulty genes when analysing diseases like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder beggars belief
