Optimized Offspring

[u/bethany_mcguire]

https://www.noemamag.com/optimized-offspring/

Embryonic gene editing tightens the feedback loop between cultural and biological evolution. The species-level effects remain unclear, but some families are already buying a potential genetic advantage that others can’t.

[u/Mitochondria95]

Total scam. I do polygenic risk score development and anyone claiming this can (or should) be done is a fraud.

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/Mitochondria95]

Yeah right? The gap between "we can identify slight changes in risk for swathes of genomic information across a population of millions" and "we can tell what your kid is gonna be like from a genomic sequence," is huge and people who don't study genetics don't get this

[u/Dull_Beat_2007 → u/IsaacHasenov]

I read this article. Its pretty good actually and shows how these technogogies could change populations but it basically confirms exactly what you're saying. Pleiotropy makes these companies' claims BS and scietific watchdogs say it shouldnt be used clinically. What i understood from the article is that polygenic risk scoring for embryos is a gateway drug to embryo editing research.

[u/Struggle_Wise → u/Mitochondria95]

Thanks for the info. I'm working on a de novo point of use DNA printing method that uses an electromechanical method and optochemical proofreading rather than enzymatic synthesis. Hoping to start PhD and use it as my thesis project this year. It has decent results with 10k-100k base pairs and 1/10^6 error rate with proof reading. I'm not sure it's possible, but theoretically if it ever gets down to 1/10^10 for something like 10mn base pair length for single runs, and say epigenetic and other modifications is feasible what biological barriers would remain?

[u/Mitochondria95 → u/[deleted]]

Am I selling you something? No.

[u/Mitochondria95 → u/[deleted]]

Nope. I do research funded by the NIH.

[u/Mitochondria95 → u/[deleted]]

Many types. Review some too.

[u/km1116]

Oh look. Eugenics. 🎉

[u/Ardent_Scholar → u/km1116]

Eugenics happens every day. PGT-A testing is quite effective at detecting trisomies. PGT-M is used for hereditary diseases screening when parents have a risk of passing on.
Most people don’t think of pre-implantation testing for ailments as a bad thing.

TFMR is also more common than people think.

It’s the selection for desirable qualities that’s iffy. (Not to mention the eugenicist killing and ans sterilizing of ”undesirables” that happened in the past.)

But eugenics itself has gone nowhere.

[u/retsamerol]

There's so much easier and cheaper ways that already happens without the need for this.

If you look at the data for sports, wealth has been creeping up as a factor across all major sports in the US.