It’s not exactly a known fact, but still in the procedure of in vitro fertilization (IVF) the parents have the opportunity to choose from several embryos that continue to develop into a full organism. Of course, before that, scientists will carry out tests to future child was healthy. But a group of researchers at Genomic Prediction has developed another very interesting method of diagnosis which will provide an opportunity to learn how intellectually developed could be the person who will be born in 9 months.
According to the publication New Scientist, the new diagnostic algorithm will not show what the exact IQ level is in the unborn child. He will be able to predict how high the risk of cognitive impairment, which is almost always accompanied by a drop in the level of intelligence. With this knowledge parents will be able to make informed decisions about whether to continue the pregnancy after genetic counseling. However, even scientists themselves are not sure that they have created technology should be used.
“Of course, we can weed out the less intelligent children on the stage of IVF, but this does not mean that we have to do it. The creation of “designer children” with the given IQ level raises many ethical questions.”
The experts rely on DNA analysis, which has been used successfully to detect serious genetic mutations of the embryo in IVF. Only here the method developed Genomic Prediction involves a deeper analysis of the genetic material and reveals a whole heap associated with certain parts of the genome of cognitive impairment, potentially affecting intelligence.
“Our method is not precise enough to predict the IQ for each embryo, but in the long term may indicate potential parents, which of the embryos with a high probability will have IQ below average and some above.” — said the co-founder of Genomic Prediction Steven Shu.
Of course, the creation of “designer children” is extremely controversial and we even recently had a story on this topic. And what about this do you think? How justified human intervention in the genome? Tell us about it in our chat in Telegram.