Though sexually transmitted diseases have existed for thousands of years, from the late twentieth century AIDS became an enduring pandemic, mapping onto and exacerbating pre-existing inequalities. It must be historically contextualized within the global spread of older STDs such as syphilis and gonorrhoea, as a result of colonialism and imperialism. From its earliest identification among gay and bisexual men in the United States in the 1980s, AIDS-related stigma and discrimination acted as barriers to effective HIV prevention. In Africa women”s experiences of gender oppression, including through the criminalization of sex work, rendered them susceptible to HIV infection. The racial oppression of Black people, Indigenous people, and people of colour placed them at special risk of HIV. The pandemic also occasioned fundamental, adverse social changes, including AIDS orphans. It is against this backdrop that AIDS activism emerged. Activists have campaigned for sex-positive prevention education, adequate funding, and greater political will to develop treatments. The history of AIDS is deserving of study for the way in which it conceptualizes how structural oppression and human rights violations shape sexual and reproductive health, and how gender- and sexuality-oppressed groups can challenge human rights violations and advance global health justice.

Widespread use of a biotechnology often does not occur for years after it is first introduced to the scientific community. Yet CRISPR–Cas systems, unlike their predecessor technologies, have been adopted by laboratories all around the world with unprecedented speed and used to edit the genomes of virtually every living organism. One substantial predicament about powerful technologies is that they are often prone to manipulation by speculative agents who—knowingly or not—extrapolate unfounded notions of, and spread misinformation that oversells, what is technologically feasible. This chapter provides a comprehensive, yet nonexhaustive, survey of the current and prospective applications of genome-editing technologies that faithfully tracks primary scientific sources and, thus, is firmly grounded in a jurisprudence of scientific empiricism. The chapter examines applications of genome editing in myriad fields ranging from stem-cell research, pest-population control, viral diagnostics, biofuel production, and agriculture to synthetic biology, animal research, human therapeutics, epigenome editing, digital-data recording in living organisms, and more. This exposition underscores two points. First, genome-editing technologies are not mere tools for basic research, but rather epitomize prolific mines for future significant scientific breakthroughs. Second, every technology endowed with awe-inspiring powers should be handled responsibly and with respect.