In vitro gametogenesis, or IVG, is a unique technique that allows you to grow a huge number of embryos based on a tiny amount of donor genetic material. Together with the genome editing method in the future, this could become the main tool with which people can select and customize the data of their future children.
Baby Design is a kind of hypothetical conundrum that drives scientists crazy. Let's say you want to customize your child's appearance in the same way that you can customize the interior of a living room or the appearance of a car now. Of course, the intervention of geneticists and biochemists is indispensable here. In vitro fertilization (IVF) technology allows parents to to some extent select the traits of the unborn child from the huge list that the curators of the sperm bank make, but how far can such experiments go?
A group of scientists and bioethics are working hard on ways that will allow you to program your children's appearance in the future. In vitro gametogenesis (IVG) is a technique that allows specific sets of genes to be programmed in the egg and sperm. In practice, this means that on the basis of any genetic material (even skin flakes) a sexual agent can be grown that can be used for artificial insemination. Want a kid from a celebrity? Just steal the napkin he used to wipe his lips at the restaurant and bring it to the clinic!
“What is IVG? It is literally the ability to edit the CRISPR system. This promising development is still evolving, but its potential is already predicting a future in which genetic adjustment will no longer be something supernatural,”says Glenn Cohen, a professor at Harvard University and one of the authors of the new article in the journal Science Translational Medicine. He warns that IVG can be the source of many political and ethical dilemmas, and it's easy to believe.
IVG allows you to easily produce a huge number of embryos, and CRISPR manipulation technologies will allow you to easily edit certain genetic parameters, choosing the most attractive options for implantation. Cohen compares this to how Michelangelo's painting of the Sistine Chapel differs from the day-to-day work of a modern designer in Photoshop. “If the natural process of embryonic development goes on for a long time and according to a predetermined scenario, with all the disadvantages that follow from this, then here the master can try a thousand options before finally finding the most suitable combination for him,” he says.
In reality, this scale is still very far away. Currently, IVG has only been tested in mice, and the technology for altering CRISPR, so often featured as the main argument for a breakthrough in genetics, is actually only slightly researched. Both imperfect technologies and a huge number of economic, ethical, political, religious and other social aspects, which sometimes simply cut off oxygen for scientists, act as inhibiting factors. For such a delicate industry as embryonic genetics to develop in full force, you need advanced equipment, millions of dollars in investment and the absence of any restrictions, which is almost impossible to achieve in the modern world.
There are certain difficulties from the technical side of the issue. Now, if you want to edit the genetic structure of the embryo, you will first have to carry out the interaction of sperm with eggs, and then hope that you will get an embryo with the set of basic characteristics you need, moreover, without any extraneous and pathological features. But if you work with stem cells, you can edit them before they turn into sex cells, which means you have an almost endless number of tries.
According to Cohen, IVG cannot be considered as a complete reproductive technology. Instead, the scientist proposes to develop a specific set of rules based on ethical and scientific assessments of the process. In the future, technology can easily get out of the control of society, although it is worth noting that it will almost completely solve the problems with infertility around the world. But it won't be soon.
Promotional video: