Like all new parents, Arthur Zey and his partner Chase Popp think their one-month-old son Dax is the most perfect baby in the world. They glow with pride when they boast about his good health, his happy demeanor and even his lack of diaper rash.
But unlike most parents, Zey and Popp don’t attribute their son’s excellent temperament to their paternal instincts alone.
In March last year, they had a choice of six embryos created by Zey’s sperm and a donor’s eggs to implant into a surrogate mother. Genetic analysis gave them predictions for the future heights, IQs and multiple health markers for the viable embryos.
Zey and Popp then chose which one would become their first-born child, making little Dax a pioneer in today’s brave new world of commercial eugenics.
Cradling his baby son on his shoulder, Popp – a 29-year-old elementary school teacher – said that everything they had seen in Dax so far vindicated their decision: ‘Looking at Dax, he overall seems like he feels good, he looks healthy to me.
‘When [people] say he’s a designer baby, I take that as a huge compliment: yes, he is a designer baby, and we’re proud of it and he should be proud of it.’
Zey, a 41-year-old technology product manager who is taking time off to be a stay-at-home dad, says he wishes his parents had access to technology that could have given him favorable traits – such as being more muscular – when he was conceived.
‘If it is within your means to affect your child’s life for the better, I think that’s the responsible, compassionate thing to do,’ he told the Daily Mail.
Popp and Zey chose which embryo would become their first-born child, making little Dax a pioneer in today’s brave new world of commercial eugenics
Genetic analysis gave them predictions for the future heights, IQs and multiple health markers for the viable embryos
While genetic experts question the effectiveness of screening embryos for traits like intelligence, mental health and height, the service is currently being offered at eye-popping prices. Much of the research and development is funded by Silicon Valley tech bros obsessed with creating a super-race of improved humans.
‘Most of them are not concerned with what happens to you or me: they’re interested in what happens in Silicon Valley with their reproduction,’ said Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine.
‘[They think] maybe we’re not going to be able to go to Mars if we don’t genetically alter our bodies in some way to be able to survive the trip. Maybe AI will eliminate humanity because it’s too smart, so we need a subset of people to stay abreast of what AI’s tricks are.’
It sounds like dystopian science fiction: a class of genetically screened or enhanced humans, lording over a genetically inferior class who cannot access or afford the technology – foretold in the 1997 science fiction film Gattaca starring Ethan Hawke.
In the film, the elite are screened to inherit the best genes from their parents, while an underclass of naturally conceived ‘invalids’ are barred from entering top professions. It was meant to be a warning about how eugenics can fuel inequality, but many of its concepts have already become a reality.
In 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui said he had created the first gene-edited babies, claiming to have successfully modified the DNA on three embryos to produce children immune to HIV. He – who has referred to himself as the ‘Chinese Darwin’ and ‘Oppenheimer in China’ – was sentenced to three years in prison by the Chinese authorities for violating medical regulations, and Beijing banned any further gene editing in reproductive cells.
In 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui said he had created the first gene-edited babies, claiming to have successfully modified the DNA on three embryos to produce children immune to HIV
He was released in 2022 and has said he is determined to continue his research to eliminate conditions such as Alzheimer’s in embryos. But he had a stark warning for those wishing to deploy the science for non-medical aims.
‘Recently, some billionaires in Silicon Valley have been pushing forward to enhance human IQ, in particular in babies,’ he told WIRED.
‘I think that is a Nazi eugenic experiment. That should be stopped. The scientists working on this should be arrested if they want to enhance human IQ for the billionaires.’
It wasn’t clear which billionaires or start-ups he was referencing. There are at least three companies backed by Silicon Valley investigating embryo editing, even though research on human embryos is banned in most of the world. In the US, editing genes in embryos with the intention of becoming babies is banned.
While the companies claim to be researching gene editing possibilities for medical purposes to eradicate hereditary illness, the academic community is skeptical.
‘The “embryo editors” are deceiving themselves and the public when they speak of using this technology to address the public health challenge of genetic disease,’ said Fyodor Urnov, a director at the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
‘Their sole purpose is “baby improvement.” This is technically dangerous and profoundly amoral.’
The San Francisco-based startup Preventive has raised $30 million for its research into reproductive gene editing and is backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, as well as Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong.
Armstrong has written on X that he envisions Gattaca-style IVF clinics in the future where technologies including genetic testing and embryo editing will ‘accelerate evolution.’
Nucleus Genomics has plastered the New York subway with posters urging people to ‘Have Your Best Baby’
Nucleus Genomics has backers including PayPal founder Peter Thiel
The San Francisco-based startup Preventive has raised $30 million for its research into reproductive gene editing and is backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, as well as Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong
Lucas Harrington, Preventive’s founder, declined to discuss his current research with the Daily Mail, but he did hit back at He Jiankui.
‘We are deeply concerned by He Jiankui’s recent public statements indicating his intent to pursue embryo editing again, particularly given his apparent lack of contrition for the reckless and unethical nature of his previous work,’ Harrington said.
‘Heritable genome editing presents real potential risks, and any responsible effort in this space must begin with rigorous, transparent preclinical safety research.’
The risks, says Caplan, are that healthy genes are incorrectly targeted, or DNA may be disrupted in a way that has unintended consequences.
Then there are the ethical dilemmas: who decides what is a medical issue and what is an enhancement, and what genetic traits are good or bad? Will the technology exacerbate inequality? Could authoritarian governments misuse it? What if a mistake is made – then passed down to future generations?
While gene editing in embryos is decades from becoming a reality, a handful of companies have emerged offering genetic screening.
Nucleus Genomics has plastered the New York subway with posters urging people to ‘Have Your Best Baby.’ The company – whose backers include PayPal founder Peter Thiel – analyzes for traits such as acne, hair color, male pattern baldness, anxiety and alcohol dependence.
Parents Arthur Zey and Chase Popp went through a company called Herasight, which began operating last year.
For a $50,000 price tag, Herasight says it can analyze embryos and give parents an indication of future traits such as IQ and height, as well as risk factors like schizophrenia, psoriasis and Type 2 Diabetes.
Jonathan Anomaly, Herasight’s research and communications director, is concerned that alarmist rhetoric over terms like ‘eugenics’ is creating an environment in which governments are preventing parents from choosing their child’s genetic makeup.
‘It’s not worth gratuitously using that word just to provoke,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, we should stop focusing on words and start focusing on moral principles. And the moral principle at stake here is individual autonomy.’
Popp and Zey went through Herasight, which began operations last year
Popp said that everything they had seen in Dax so far vindicated their decision: ‘Looking at Dax, he overall seems like he feels good, he looks healthy to me’
The technology to screen embryos produced through IVF for chromosomal abnormalities and for mutations to single genes which cause hereditary illnesses like sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis and Huntington’s Disease has existed for decades. It is routinely offered to people with hereditary risk factors to prevent debilitating diseases being passed to children.
However, many of the diseases and traits Herasight is screening for are polygenic, meaning they are associated with many different genes. This makes it ‘near impossible’ to identify and reliably predict any outcome, said Urnov.
Anomaly disagrees: he says Herasight has access to data from diverse human biobanks around the world and has analyzed the genomes of at least half a million people to determine the genetic variants for the traits that they offer to screen for.
‘In the short term, the science has advanced very quickly, and it’s going to continue advancing,’ he said.
He concedes that right now such services are the prevail of the rich – and says they have a few well-known billionaires on their client list – but hopes that the price tag will come down as the processes become less labor-intensive.
Zey thinks there could potentially be a future divide between the genetically enhanced and unenhanced but believes that ‘a rising tide raises all ships,’ with the more intelligent cohort of humans helping humanity become better.
And he is confident that Baby Dax will be up there with the best of them. While he and Popp chose the embryo with the best longevity prediction, the IQ score was also up to scratch.
‘Do we have an expectation that he’s going to be brilliant? Yes,’ Zey said.
Zey and Popp were given access to the technology for free as an early proof of concept for Herasight, but Caplan believes there are plenty of super-rich willing to buy themselves an advantage – even though they are more likely just being sold a sliver of hope.
‘Just look at what people spend in DC or New York for the fancy private school, and spending $90,000 for kindergarten,’ he said. ‘So when people say, is there a market? Yes – even getting a slight edge appeals to some.’
