Feed: Slashdot
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Title: Genetically Engineered Babies Are Banned in the US. But Tech Titans
Are Trying to Make One Anyway

Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/11/09/2...

"For months, a small company in San Francisco has been pursuing a secretive
project: the birth of a genetically engineered baby," reports the Wall Street
Journal: Backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, along
with Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, the startup - called
Preventive - has been quietly preparing what would amount to a biological
first. They are working toward creating a child born from an embryo edited to
prevent a hereditary disease.... Editing genes in embryos with the intention
of creating babies from them is banned in the U.S. and many countries.
Preventive has been searching for places to experiment where embryo editing
is allowed, including the United Arab Emirates, according to correspondence
reviewed by The Wall Street Journal... Preventive is in the vanguard of a
growing number of startups, funded by some of the most powerful people in
Silicon Valley, that are pushing the boundaries of fertility and working to
commercialize reproductive genetic technologies. Some are working on embryo
editing, while others are already selling genetic screening tools that seek
to account for the influence of dozens or hundreds of genes on a trait. They
say their ultimate goal is to produce babies who are free of genetic disease
and resilient against illnesses. Some say they can also give parents the
ability to choose embryos that will have higher IQs and preferred traits such
as height and eye color. Armstrong, the cryptocurrency billionaire, is
leading the charge to make embryo editing a reality. He has told people that
gene-editing technology could produce children who are less prone to heart
disease, with lower cholesterol and stronger bones to prevent osteoporosis.
According to documents and people briefed on his plans, he is already an
investor or in talks with embryo editing ventures... After the Journal
approached people close to the company last month to ask about its work,
Preventive announced on its website that it had raised $30 million in
investment to explore embryo editing. The statement pledged not to advance to
human trials "if safety cannot be established through extensive research..."
Other embryo editing startups are Manhattan Genomics, co-founded by Thiel
Fellow Cathy Tie, and Bootstrap Bio, which plans to conduct tests in
Honduras. Both companies are in early stages. The article notes the only
known instance of children born from edited embryos was in 2018, when Chinese
scientist He Jiankui "shocked the world with news that he had produced three
children genetically altered as embryos to be immune to HIV. He was sentenced
to prison in China for three years for the illegal practice of medicine. "He
hasn't publicly shared the children's identities but says they are healthy.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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