The Ethical Frontier

Biotech power demands ethical boundaries. In 2018, a Chinese scientist used CRISPR to edit human embryos, creating the first gene-edited babies.

Some of the newest treatments are not pills but engineered cells. In CAR-T therapy, doctors remove a patient's own immune cells, reprogram them in the lab to recognize cancer, and infuse them back in. These living drugs have driven blood cancers into remission in patients who had run out of options — a treatment that is grown, not manufactured.