Silicon Valley’s race to produce genetically engineered humans

Several recent Biopolitical Times posts (1, 2, 3, 4) have called attention to the alarmingly rapid commercialization of “designer baby” technologies: polygenic embryo screening (especially its use to purportedly screen for traits like intelligence), in vitro gametogenesis (lab-made eggs and sperm), and heritable genome editing (also termed embryo editing or reproductive gene editing). Those three, together with artificial wombs, have been dubbed the “Gattaca stack” by Brian Armstrong, CEO of the cryptocurrency company Coinbase. A recently launched Gattaca Stack website lists three dozen research labs and companies developing one or more of these technologies.

Armstrong recently declared that the “the time is right for the defining company in the US to be built in this area” and has been hosting invite-only dinner parties to discuss heritable genome editing with scientists and prospective investors. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Armstrong has now officially entered the designer-baby business by funding heritable genome editing startup Preventive, co-founded by Lucas Harrington, a former student of Jennifer Doudna and co-founder with her of Mammoth Biosciences, and Matt Krisiloff, founder and CEO of Conception, the Silicon Valley-funded startup working to produce lab-made human eggs for reproduction. Sam Altman of Open AI is also an investor.

At Wired, Emily Mullin provides new details about Manhattan Genomics (previously “Manhattan Project”), the embryo editing company founded by former Thiel Fellow and serial entrepreneur Cathy Tie, who was briefly married to He Jiankui and ran his social media accounts. Manhattan has recruited a team of “scientific and bioethics contributors” – consultants and advisors who will take a hands-on approach in shaping the company’s embryo editing work. The team includes fertility doctor Norbert Gleicher, two experts in primate embryology, a bioethicist, and Stephen Turner, a data scientist from the de-extinction company Colossal Bio, where Manhattan co-founder Eriona Hysolli was formerly the director of biological sciences. It’s notable that Colossal has their own ambitions to spin off companies that would apply the technologies they’ve developed for work on animals to human health. OHSU embryo editing scientist Shoukhrat Mitalipov and Paula Amato, his longtime collaborator and recent past president of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, are not listed on the website but confirmed to Mullin that they are working with Manhattan Genomics.

Publicly, both Tie and Harrington emphasize that they are planning to work carefully and deliberately, with maximum transparency, to establish the safety and efficacy of embryo editing before attempting to use heritable genome editing to bring about genetically modified children. Neither are willing to reveal much, however, about which genetic conditions they plan to focus on or what techniques they’ll be using.

“Shock the world into acceptance”

But according to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal, at least one of the companies has considered taking a page from He Jiankui’s playbook. WSJ reporters Emily Glazer, Katherine Long, and Amy Dockser Marcus reveal that Preventive has been “quietly preparing” for experiments in reproductive gene editing. Company executives reportedly said in private that they have identified a couple with a genetic disease who want to participate. And the company has been searching for a country where they think such experiments would be allowed. They have discussed the United Arab Emirates, according to correspondence seen by WSJ, although it appears that UAE updated the regulations on assisted reproduction in late 2020 to explicitly prohibit genetic modification of embryos.

Armstrong, who may be an investor in multiple embryo editing ventures, has apparently been floating a plan to “work in secret and reveal a healthy genetically engineered baby before the scientific and medical establishment had a chance to object—a leap meant to shock the world into acceptance.” (When questioned by WSJ, a spokeswoman for Armstrong walked this back, saying it was someone else’s bad idea, which he brought up only to reject.) 

The recent media stories underscore the key role of Silicon Valley tech elites in the race to commercialize genetically engineered children, emphasizing the field-shaping influence, effectively limitless funding, and politically extreme visions of figures like Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, and Brian Armstrong. Their push for designer babies is of a piece with other Silicon Valley ventures in the belief that the rules don’t (or shouldn’t) apply to them and the assumption that “laws will change” because they don’t like the ones that are there. 

Despite these companies’ assurances that they will work cautiously and transparently, will we actually see the “move fast and break things” mentality applied to creating “upgraded” children? Armstrong has openly mused about bringing the full “Gattaca stack” to the “IVF clinic of the future” as a way to “accelerate evolution.” 

Scientific self-regulation is not enough

Even in the immediate wake of the He Jiankui “CRISPR babies” scandal, some scientists and bioethicists resisted legal prohibitions or moratoria on heritable genome editing, arguing instead that scientists should be left to their own devicesand that countries could not be expected to make or conform to international agreements (despite the remarkable extent of global agreement on prohibiting heritable genome editing). The race to build a market for CRISPR babies highlights how attempts to control heritable genome editing through scientific self-regulation or a country-by-country approach are likely to fail. 

Jeffrey Kahn, director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute for Bioethics, was a co-author of the 2020 report from US and UK national science academies, Heritable Human Genome Editing. Kahn told the Wall Street Journal:

“When we were working on that report, I think we all thought this research would live in the academic environment, and so the rules would apply. But when you’re outside of that environment in a startup, the question of how do we make sure this happens responsibly becomes much more important.” 

The statement is surprising, considering that many critics had been raising alarms for years about the likelihood that heritable genome editing would roll out in the highly unregulated global fertility industry. That 2020 report was already a “do-over” of sorts for the US National Academies, whose 2017 report on the subject was widely seen as providing a green light for He Jiankui’s experiments in heritable genome editing.

Other high-level reports, including those published in 2021 by the World Health Organization’s Expert Advisory Committee on Developing Global Standards for Governance and Oversight of Human Genome Editing were more prescient in anticipating the developments we’re seeing now, including both the role that the fertility industry might play and the possibility that researchers or entrepreneurs might look abroad for countries where they could evade domestic restrictions, a practice known as ethics dumping. 

When the WHO reports were published, CGS noted that they “give significant weight to the … vast social inequalities and profit motivations that would shape [heritable genome editing’s] use” and how the “lack of international coordination would allow unscrupulous scientists and entrepreneurs to evade rules and regulations.” Unfortunately, the WHO committee stopped short of recommending the kind of global ban or moratorium that might prevent these actions. 

Since then, a small but significant number of academic and industry scientists have jumped eagerly onboard efforts to bring a dangerous technology to market, despite widely recognized safety, ethical, and societal risks and strong opposition from many scientists, industry groups, ethicists, civil society, and the broader public.

The convergence and commercialization of designer baby technologies, supercharged by Silicon Valley’s wealth and distorted visions of the future, are sending us hurtling toward a world of industrial-scale production of genetically engineered humans – one designed to establish current economic elites as future biological elites. Now is the time for urgent action to prevent heritable genome editing and preserve our hopes for a just and inclusive future.