Personal experience: genetic scientists helped a couple to have a "designer" baby
Improve, edit, achieve the ideal. The level of modern genetics already allows parents to choose the gender and color of the eyes of the unborn child, and in recent years a passionate discussion has flared up about the ethics of the phenomenon of "designer babies".
The American television channel HBO filmed a documentary about a couple who, not afraid of public condemnation, decided to turn to new technologies in order to fulfill their old dream - to conceive a daughter.
Stork with a list of options
Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg is the founder of the American company The Fertility Institutes, which specializes in PGD - preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). This is a technology that allows you to identify genetic defects and other features in the embryo before IVF (in vitro fertilization). Even at the test-tube stage, doctors will find out what diseases threaten the future baby. You can also find out the sex and eye color of the embryo.
Since for IVF, as a rule, several embryos grown in vitro are used at once, parents with the help of geneticists are able to choose the most healthy of all embryos (and, if they want, the desired sex and with the "desired" iris color). It is he who will be transferred to the uterus of the expectant mother.
The choice of a fetus of a certain gender will cost expectant parents from $ 16,390 (the cost of the IVF procedure is not included). The probability of a successful identification is 99.9 percent.
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Too much is how?
Deborah and Jonathan are a Los Angeles couple who, like hundreds of others, turned to Steinberg due to infertility to undergo IVF. Having learned about the possibility to determine also possible diseases and the sex of the unborn baby, we decided to do PGD as well.
“This is logical: if possible, it is necessary to check [the embryo] for various abnormalities and give birth to the most healthy child,” explained Deborah.
In addition, the couple always wanted a baby: in the past, both were influenced by strong women, so Deborah and Jonathan want to raise an independent and intelligent girl.
Nevertheless, the couple decided not to choose an eye color for the child - it seemed to them that this was already too much. Deborah and Jonathan already faced condemnation when their family and friends learned that the couple intended to choose the sex of the child.
Meanwhile, Dr. Steinberg predicts that in five years, parents will be able to choose even the growth of the unborn baby if they wish.
Mice and other sensations
Today's "designer" babies are not the result of any genetic modification. All that doctors do is examine the embryos obtained during IVF and choose the most "correct" one. But now there is a CRISPR technology that allows you to make the necessary changes directly to the genome: however, so far we are talking only about plants and animals.
In 2011, the Chinese government allocated significant funds for the development of biotechnology. Part was sent to the National Mouse Mutation Research Center in Nanjing. Employees of the organization are conducting experiments on 450 thousand rodents in order to learn how to change genes, remove unnecessary ones and save the desired ones. For example, genes for circadian rhythms, diabetes or obesity are altered in mice.
The geneticists whom HBO correspondent Isobel Yong spoke to, who participated in the creation of the film, expressed confidence that CRISPR has great prospects: perhaps the technology will help people get rid of many diseases and even learn how to edit the gene responsible for the level of intelligence (although it must first be found).
Isobel believes that as scientists learn more about the human genome and allow parents to choose certain traits in their offspring, people will face a great moral dilemma.
Ethics debate
Many critics of "designer" babies believe that the ability to choose the traits of the heir will finally stratify society along financial lines: it is obvious that as the study of the genome and the appearance of new options available to parents, the procedure for creating a "turnkey" child is unlikely to become cheaper.
Proponents of new technologies, however, argue that the very fact of unequal opportunities is as old as the world and new opportunities that open up to wealthier parents will not affect the state of affairs in any way.
Embryologist at work
Photo: Sang Tan / AP
During IVF, the egg is removed from the woman's body and artificially fertilized in vitro ("in vitro"). The resulting embryo is kept in an incubator, where it develops within 2-5 days. Then the embryo is transferred into the uterine cavity for further development. This medical technology was first successfully applied in the UK in 1977.
From the point of view of experts from the world of bioethics (the doctrine of the moral side of human activity in medicine and biology), the most alarming prospect is that the achievements of genetics will turn into an international race, similar to the rivalry in space exploration between the USSR and the United States in the 20th century.
There is another dangerous point - the loss of genetic diversity. Experts fear that most parents will want to produce blond and blue-eyed angels.
Eugenics specialists (the doctrine of selection as applied to humans) emphasize that the most important thing is that new knowledge is used for good, and not for the sake of satisfying the whim of people and enriching clinics. Technologies of the future should not be directed towards "decorative" purposes at all, because this area of science will help in the fight against many hereditary diseases.
Long wait
In Western countries, such as the US and the UK, it is currently prohibited to change the genes of embryos used for IVF.
True, in the UK, a group of scientists was recently given permission to change the genes of embryos in the course of researching the causes of repeated miscarriages in mothers.
In Russia, however, even the choice of the sex of the unborn child with IVF is still prohibited, with the exception of cases of the possibility of inheriting sex-related diseases.
Isobel Yong believes that a boom in designer babies should not be expected in the near future, since scientists still have a lot to study in the human genome. But in the long term, change is coming.
“I spoke with biologists and other experts who predict that in the next 50 years we will completely change the way we produce offspring. So sex for the sake of having children will be considered a little old-fashioned,”says Yong.
Julia Verby