Designer Babies with Three Biological Parents

Successful experimentation with monkeys shows promise for creating humans with transplanted DNA from egg to egg, to manipulate genetic traits, including presumed defects believed to lead to disease.

For background, read Designer Babies Available Upon Request

UPDATE 10/25/12: Lab 'Creates' Human Life with 3 Biological Parents

-- From "DNA swap could cure inherited diseases" by Mark Henderson, The Times (London) Science Editor 8/27/09

The technique is controversial . . . because the children it creates would inherit genetic material from three parents. The mother and father would contribute most of their child’s DNA but a small amount would come from a second woman donating healthy mitochondria.

Such children would be the first produced by germline genetic engineering, in which genes introduced by artificial means would be passed to successive generations.

Although more than 99 per cent of a cell’s DNA is carried in the nucleus, a small amount resides in the mitochondria — tiny energy-producing structures inherited from the mother — and it is mutations in this mitochondrial DNA that can cause disease.

. . . the technology could be applied “pretty quickly” in humans, and that his team would apply to an internal ethics board and the US Food and Drug Adminstration for permission to try it with human eggs.

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.

Designer Babies Available Upon Request

A US clinic has sparked controversy by offering would-be parents the chance to select traits like the eye and hair colour of their offspring.

UPDATE 3/15/15: Secret Designer Babies via Gene-editing Science

For background, read Designer Baby Production Now Science-Reality

UPDATE 8/27/09: Designer Babies with Three Biological Parents

-- From "Designer baby row over US clinic" BBC News 3/2/09

The LA Fertility Institutes run by Dr Jeff Steinberg, a pioneer of IVF in the 1970s, expects a trait-selected baby to be born next year.

His clinic also offers sex selection.

UK fertility experts are angered that the service will distract attention from how the same technology can protect against inherited disease.

The science is based on a lab technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD.

This involves testing a cell taken from a very early embryo before it is put into the mother's womb.

Doctors then select an embryo free from rogue genes - or in this case an embryo with the desired physical traits such as blonde hair and blue eyes - to continue the pregnancy, and discard any others.

Dr Steinberg said couples might seek to use the clinic's services for both medical and cosmetic reasons.

For example, a couple might want to have a baby with a darker complexion to help guard against a skin cancer if they already had a child who had developed a melanoma. But others might just want a boy with blonde hair.

Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics [said,] “ This is the inevitable slippery slope of a fertility process which results in many more embryos being created than can be implanted ”

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.

Designer Baby Production Now Science-Reality

Genetic testing . . . allows scientists to test embryos developed in the laboratory so that only "healthy" embryos are implanted into the womb, experts said at the National Press Club on Tuesday.

UPDATE 3/15/15: Secret Designer Babies via Gene-editing Science

-- From "Genetic Testing in a Petri Dish Could Eliminate 'Imperfect' Humans -- Before Implanting in Mom" by Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer, CNSNews.com 10/29/08

"Pre-implantation" screening is done by egg fertilization in a Petri dish and then the embryos are screened so that those with genetic disorders can be eliminated, said panelist Sherri Bale, a medical geneticist and co-founder of GeneDx, a company that offers molecular diagnoses of hereditary disorders.

. . . Bale said. "We're going to test those embryos and we're going to find out which ones don't carry the mutation and those embryos can be implanted back into the mom and then she can have a baby that's virtually guaranteed not to have this disease."

When asked by CNSNews.com whether genetic testing will allow parents to only have what they consider perfect children, panel members did not answer the question directly . . .

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.

Study: 40% of Men Get Free Pass for Adultery

Sexual revolutionaries hype gene research claiming men may be born to be, or not to be, monogamous -- just one more attack on marriage

-- From "Study Links Gene Variant in Men to Marital Discord" by Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Staff Writer 9/2/08

Men are more likely to be devoted and loyal husbands when they lack a particular variant of a gene that influences brain activity, researchers announced yesterday -- the first time that science has shown a direct link between a man's genes and his aptitude for monogamy.

The finding is striking because it not only links the gene variant -- which is present in two of every five men -- with the risk of marital discord and divorce, but also appears to predict whether women involved with these men are likely to say their partners are emotionally close and available, or distant and disagreeable. The presence of the gene variant, or allele, also seems predictive of whether men get married or live with women without getting married.

The finding set off a debate about whether people should conduct genetic tests to find out whether potential mates are bad marriage prospects. Several independent scientists called the discovery remarkable and elegant but disagreed over whether such information ought to be used in making personal decisions about love and marriage.

. . . if a man's culture, religion and family background each have a seat at the conference table that determines his attitudes toward marital fidelity and monogamy, his genes might well sit at the head of the table.

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.

UK: Parliament Votes to Allow Creation of Human Animal Hybrids

Exaggerated hope for cures leads Brits to cross a terrible line...

From "MPs back creation of human-animal embryos" by Mark Henderson and Francis Elliot, posted 5/20/08 at timesonline.co

British scientists will be allowed to research devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s using human-animal embryos, after the House of Commons rejected a ban yesterday.

An amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have outlawed the creation of “human admixed embryos” for medical research was defeated in a free vote by a majority of 160, preserving what Gordon Brown regarded as a central element of the legislation.

...A second amendment, which would have banned the creation of “true hybrids” made by fertilising an animal egg with human sperm, or vice-versa, was...defeated yesterday by a majority of 63. Another free vote last night was expected to approve the use of embryo-screening to create “saviour siblings” suitable to donate umbilical cord blood to sick children.

Edward Leigh, Conservative MP for Gainsborough, moving the amendment to ban all admixed embryos, said that mingling animal and human DNA crossed an “ultimate boundary”. He said that exaggerated claims were giving patients false hope and that the dangers of the research were unknown. “In many ways we are like children playing with landmines without any concept of the dangers of the technology we are handling,” he said.

Read the rest of this article.

UK Allows Genetic Screening for Minor Cosmetic Defects

From "The War on 'Defective' Children" by Chuck Colson, posted 6/4/07 at Breakpoint.org

...In May, Britain’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority authorized a London clinic to screen for a condition called “squint.”

Squint causes the affected eye to look inwards or outwards instead of straight ahead. Squint can be treated various ways: eyeglasses, temporary patches, eye drops and, in the most severe cases, surgery.

The Authority's ruling was in response to a businessman who has this condition and his wife, who "[wanted] to ensure they do not have a severely cross-eyed child."

The clinic will employ a technique known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Previously, PGD had been limited to cases involving "life-shortening conditions such as cystic fibrosis and fatal blood disorders." Then the uses of PGD began to expand. Doctors have used it to screen for genetic evidence of possible adult diseases like cancer and early-onset Alzheimer's.

Now, they're using it for cosmetic imperfections. As David King of Human Genetics Alert said: "We moved from preventing children who will die young to those who might become ill in middle age. And now we discard those who will live as long as the rest of us but are cosmetically imperfect."

The man who will perform the test agrees. Gedis Grudzinskas predicts that the use of embryo screening for "severe cosmetic defects" will increase because of the ruling. By "severe" he means anything that might cause a family "severe distress," like the wrong hair color, which could lead to "bullying" and "even suicide."

Anybody who is surprised by this story simply hasn't been paying attention. As I've previously told BreakPoint listeners, genetic testing has turned people with Down syndrome into an endangered species. Actually, they might survive if they weren't human: If they were wolves or ferrets, someone might actually care that they were being eliminated.

If we're willing to do this to children who can be seen on a sonogram, why would you think that we wouldn't target people who can't be? Especially when you factor in the cost of treating the conditions being tested for.

As David King said, "philosophers love to deride the idea of a slippery slope." But then we look around us and we are ten feet further down the hill than the last time we looked. The only question is now: Are we ready to put real limits on the uses of genetic testing?

Look around us today, and the world looks a lot like it did in that movie Gattaca. Frightening at the time—and frightening today.