The Genetic Algorithm That Revealed My Possible Babies

“It is likely that within a few decades, people will look back on our current circumstance with a sense of disbelief that we screened for so few conditions. They will also be puzzled and dismayed, as I am now, that our healthcare system put so many couples in an unnecessarily difficult position, by not identifying their carrier status until a pregnancy was already underway.” — Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health

“Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.” — William Shakespeare, King Lear

Lee Silver, the co-founder and chief science officer of GenePeeks, is tough to pin down. He admits he has severe ADD that makes it hard for him to focus for hours or even minutes. He certainly doesn’t like to stick with a job for more than a few years. “I get bored with things,” he says. GenePeeks arose during one of Silver’s flights of boredom. But the idea at its core is so big that he’s still at...