Season 2 : Genetics in American Politics & Culture
Episode 11: The Most Dangerous Thing
Donald Trump Believes
Sue Currell, PhD
Episode Summary
Sue Currell, PhD, discusses the disturbing echoes of eugenic thinking in American politics today. She calls eugenics “the backbone of political control and a progressive meritocracy,” and argues that the “grip of eugenic ideas on American politics is a political failure to imagine a world where value is not profit.”
Episode 10: Eugenic Thinking & The Race to Build AI
Timnit Gebru, PhD
Émile P. Torres, PhD
Episode Summary
Timnit Gebru, PhD, and Émile P. Torres, PhD, discuss how eugenic ideologies are influencing Silicon Valley and driving the push for artificial general intelligence. They talk about how eugenic thinking pervades American culture, including Big Tech and medicine, and is foundational in the worldviews of some of the powerful people in the United States today.
Episode 9: Breeding “Better” Humans & Other Dangerous Ideas Driving American Politics
Angela Saini
Episode Summary
Award-winning science journalist and author, Angela Saini, talks about our cultural, historic, and scientific understandings of race, gender, and sex, which are all delineators that figure prominently in eugenic ideas about human worth and worthiness and how these ideas are driving American politics today.
Season 1
Episode 8: The Black Genome Project
Brett Maricque, PhD & Chelsey Carter, MPH, PhD
Episode Summary
Chelsey Carter, PhD, and Brett Maricque, PhD, founders of the Black Genome Project talk about their work to understand whether genomic sequencing is valuable for everyone, how Black communities value their genomes and genetic data, and how genetic research is impacting Black communities in St. Louis
Episode 7: Genetic Difference, Disability, and Inclusion
Arielle Silverman, PhD
Episode Summary
In this episode, Arielle Silverman, PhD, Director of Research for the American Foundation for the Blind, discusses genetic difference and disability, including her own congenital blindness and the need to move towards a more inclusivity-focused mindset. She shares insights from her book Just Human: The Quest for Disability Wisdom, Respect, and Inclusion as well as her research.
Episode 6: The Eugenesis of Genetic Counseling
Alexandra Minna Stern PhD
Episode Summary
Eugenics is at the core of the emergence of the genetic counseling profession. The Humanities Dean at UCLA, a historian and researcher, discusses how this entanglement casts a long shadow over the profession and offers important historical context for some of the present day challenges facing the fields of genetics and genomics.
Episode 5: Informed Consent & Prenatal Genetic Testing
Blair Stevens MS, CGC
Episode Summary
“Informed consent” has long been held up as the gold standard of patient care in Western medicine. A prenatal genetic counselor dives into what that means when it comes to making hundreds of choices about genetic testing around pregnancy.
Episode 4: Cancer Risk & Genetics: Understanding Testing, Prevention, Treatment & Advocacy
Lisa Schlager
Episode Summary
In this episode, Lisa Schlager, the Vice President of Public Policy at FORCE, a national advocacy organization, discusses genetic testing, prevention, treatment, and legal protections for people at risk for hereditary cancer.
Episode 3: Prenatal Genetic Counseling Unlike Therapy in Any Other Setting
Kendra Schaa, ScM, LGC
Episode summary
In this episode, Kendra Schaa, ScM, LGC, a prenatal genetic counselor at a major medical center talks about the importance of the therapeutic model in meeting patients where they are. She also discusses how prenatal genetic counseling is influenced by the profession’s roots in biology over psychology, the skyrocketing number of genetic tests, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Episode 2: How DNA Testing is Shaking Up the Sperm Banking Industry
Katie Lee Hornberger, CGC
Episode Summary
In this episode of Genetic Frontiers, Katie Lee Hornberger, a certified genetic counselor with the Seattle Sperm Bank talks about how genetic testing has shaken up the sperm banking industry. DNA testing has changed everything, forcing the industry to move from a paradigm that prized anonymity towards one of greater transparency about biological relationships, genetic risks, and family medical history.
Episode 1: Finding Meaning in Life & Genetics
Nerine Gregersen, MD
Episode Summary
In this episode, Nerine Gregersen, MD, a former pediatrician, clinical geneticist, and logotherapist, discusses how learning genetic information about oneself can have profound emotional and existential impacts.
She talks about how logotherapy, a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes finding meaning as people’s primary motivation, can help support people navigating difficult diagnoses or profound life shifts triggered by genetic discoveries.
Episode 0: Living At Risk
Susanna Smith, MPH
episode summary
In this episode of Genetic Frontiers, host, Susanna Smith, shares her personal story of living as a previvor of an incurable, genetic disease, which is part of the impetus for the podcast and at the center of a book she is working on.