Eugenics 2.0: We’re at the Dawn of Choosing Embryos by Health, Height, and More
By Antonio Regalado,
MIT Tech Review
| 11. 01. 2017
Image via WikiMedia
Nathan Treff was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 24. It’s a disease that runs in families, but it has complex causes. More than one gene is involved. And the environment plays a role too.
So you don’t know who will get it. Treff’s grandfather had it, and lost a leg. But Treff’s three young kids are fine, so far. He’s crossing his fingers they won’t develop it later.
Now Treff, an in vitro fertilization specialist, is working on a radical way to change the odds. Using a combination of computer models and DNA tests, the startup company he’s working with, Genomic Prediction, thinks it has a way of predicting which IVF embryos in a laboratory dish would be most likely to develop type 1 diabetes or other complex diseases. Armed with such statistical scorecards, doctors and parents could huddle and choose to avoid embryos with failing grades.
IVF clinics already test the DNA of embryos to spot rare diseases, like cystic fibrosis, caused by defects in a single gene. But these “preimplantation” tests are poised for a dramatic leap...
Related Articles
CGS is excited to announce the launch of a new anti-eugenics initiative that has been years in the making. Legacies of Eugenics in Science, Medicine, and Technology kicks off with a monthly essay series published at the Los Angeles Review of Books that will expose and contest the reemergence of eugenic ideas in contemporary health sciences, human biotechnology, public health, and medicine. Community and campus-based events featuring the authors are also being planned. The project is a collaboration among CGS...
By Jason Kehe, Wired | 04.11.2024
God help the babies! Or, absent God, a fertility startup called Orchid. It offers prospective parents a fantastical choice: Have a regular baby or have an Orchid baby. A regular baby might grow up and get cancer. Or be born...
By Neel Shah, The Preprint | 04.11.2024
Years ago, I interviewed for a residency position at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Standing before the domed Victorian building at the campus entrance, I couldn’t help but be in awe of the history of the place, the great...
By Eleanor Hayward and Joanna Crawford, The Times | 03.29.2024
Gazing out at the Mediterranean from an idyllic rocky mountaintop, Sophie Hermann announced to her half a million Instagram followers that she had decided to freeze her eggs. Since that post in August, the 37-year-old former Made in Chelsea star...