Insight Innovation: "Smart, Beautiful and Healthy": up to $25,000 for an optimized baby
US start-ups are promising parents healthier and more intelligent children with polygenic embryo screening. Scientists are appalled.
Rafal Smigrodzki explained to his six-year-old daughter Aurea that she was a "cryobaby", conceived using a novel technology called polygenic embryo screening. Aurea is the first child worldwide to be conceived using this method, which involves freezing an embryo created through artificial fertilisation and testing it for various genetic variants to predict the risk of certain diseases and traits.
Several US start-ups, including some backed by prominent investors like Sam Altman, are now offering such tests, which can assess embryos for characteristics such as body size, intelligence, and susceptibility to conditions like Alzheimer's and diabetes. However, many experts, including geneticist Yves Moreau, are sceptical about the technology's readiness for commercialisation, citing a gap between what is being sold and what actually works.
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's report — not a translation of it. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
