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Designer babies are coming soon to an IVF clinic near you.
Nucleus Genomics, founded by Kian Sadeghi in 2020, when he was just 20, got its start analyzing genomes to weigh a person’s risk of everything from cancer to ADHD.
Sadeghi won over investors like Alexis Ohanian and Balaji Srinivasan, raising $32 million. Now, he wants to bring this level of advanced genetic testing to embryos.
While most IVF clinics test embryos for the potential of severe disease, Nucleus goes further, offering results meant to judge a future child’s chance of being overweight, bald, short or more. For $25,000, customers can get Nucleus’s top-tier offering: Sadeghi’s team will help you find a genetically optimal egg or sperm donor, surrogate, and, ultimately, embryo. “It’s basically a patient-first IVF built for longevity — built for genetic optimization,” he said. Nucleus aims to launch its service in Bay Area clinics within a few months.
But some scientists have raised the alarm. Nucleus tests for polygenic traits and conditions, meaning those caused by genes working in concert. Some studies show that many polygenic...
