Baby Heart Transplants and Big Tech Tax Tracking
A biotech company called eGenesis is experimenting with transplanting hearts from young gene-edited pigs into baby baboons in a study that could pave the way for similar transplants in human babies. He hopes to transplant pig hearts into babies with severe heart defects as early as next year to give them more time to wait for a human heart.
The company has developed a technique that uses the CRISPR gene-editing tool to make about 70 edits to the pig’s genome. In theory, these edits should allow successful organ transplants into humans.
Practice turns out to be more difficult. The team plans to test 12 newborn baboons, but of the two surgeries that have been performed so far, none of the animals have survived more than a few days. Still, the company and others in the industry remain optimistic. Read the story in its entirety.
— Jessica Hamzelow
How tech companies gained access to our tax data
You might think (or at least hope) that sensitive data like your tax returns would be kept under close surveillance. But last week we learned that tax preparation companies have been sharing millions of taxpayers’ sensitive personal information with Meta and Google, some dating back more than a decade.
Tax companies shared data through tracking pixels used for advertising purposes, a congressional investigation revealed Wednesday. Many of them say they’ve removed the pixels, but it’s unclear whether some sensitive data is being held by tech companies.
The findings reveal significant privacy risks posed by advertising and data sharing, and it’s possible that regulators will actually do something about it. Read the story in its entirety.
— Tate Ryan-Mosley
