In 1960, the US-based pharmaceutical lab G.D. Searle and Company, or Searle, launched Enovid, one of the first oral birth control pills, following approval by the US Food and Drug Administration, or FDA. Prior to Enovid, there were no oral birth control options for women. Women were reliant on male condoms, homemade concoctions, and other contraceptive methods as barriers to provide them with protection against pregnancy. Women’s rights activists like Margaret Sanger aimed to address that gap by supporting the creation a birth control pill. Sanger collaborated with researchers to formulate a hormonal pill that gives women the ability to protect themselves against getting pregnant. Although some steps in the path to creating the pill were unethical by today’s standards, they did result in the creation of an oral birth control pill. Enovid offered a new method of family planning that gave women the ability to control pregnancy and served as a precursor to additional birth control pills, which over 150 million women use worldwide annually.

A lymphoblastoid cell line, or LCL, is an immortalized population of cells derived from a specific type of white blood cell called a B lymphocyte that scientists around the world began using for biomedical research in the late 1960s. By immortalized, scientists mean that the cells have been altered so they can grow and divide indefinitely, or at least for an extended period of time. That trait of LCLs makes them useful as a replenishable source of cells and the DNA contained within them. Scientists obtain LCLs by first collecting a blood sample and then exposing the B lymphocytes in the blood to Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV. EBV alters the B lymphocytes in such a way that the cells begin to multiply without restraint. Researchers began making and storing LCLs from individuals around the world in the 1960s. As of 2025, LCLs form a mainstay of biomedical research, especially in human genetics and genomics.

The Gomco circumcision clamp is a metal device that medical practitioners use to perform circumcision, or the removal of the foreskin of the penis. Created in 1934 by Hiram S. Yellen, a physician who studied obstetrics and gynecology, and inventor Aaron A. Goldstein, the Gomco clamp was one of the first and, as of 2025, is the most commonly used circumcision clamp in the United States. To use the Gomco clamp, the medical practitioner first separates the foreskin from the glans, or head, of the penis, then places the foreskin into the clamp. The practitioner tightens the clamp, which crushes a thin, circular ribbon of foreskin, and then cuts off the remaining foreskin above the crushed portion. The Gomco clamp reduces the risk of blood loss, controls the amount of foreskin removed, protects the glans of the penis during circumcision, and allows for a clean surgical cut. By simplifying the surgical procedure of circumcision and reducing the risk of complications, the Gomco clamp helped to institutionalize routine, non-therapeutic infantile circumcision as part of the childbirth process in US hospitals.

A genome-wide association study, or GWAS, is a method for identifying variations in DNA that may contribute to the development of a particular trait, such as a disease. A GWAS relies on identifying statistical correlations between many, often thousands of, DNA markers and a particular trait. Scientists employ GWASs to try to identify the genetic contributions to complex traits, such as common human diseases. Complex traits are ones that scientists suspect are the result of multiple genes and environmental inputs acting together, in contrast to simple, Mendelian disorders that result primarily from the disturbance of a single gene. The genetic variants identified through a GWAS typically account for only a small proportion of the expected genetic contribution to a complex trait, which scientists refer to as the missing heritability problem. Since 2006, scientists have conducted thousands of GWASs aimed at identifying the genetic contributions to complex traits and have identified many thousands of genetic variations that correlate with those traits, although as of 2025, because of the missing heritability problem and other limitations, the concrete contributions of GWASs to medicine have so far been modest.