Polygenic traits should not be used for selecting embryos

The article below is an important perspective on the troubling potential use of polygenic trait scores to select embryos, written by one of the directors of the EMBL-EBI on his blog. Polygenic traits are directly affected by several loci and typically exhibit phenotypes that have continuous distributions, such as intelligence and height. While some pretty obvious arguments can be made for why using polygenic traits for selecting embryos would be immoral, this article helps to make clear that it would also likely be an ineffective way to guarantee your child has a certain height and IQ.

Polygenic trait scores, their value to medicine and for making predictions about humans, is being discussed very actively right now. Some of the most exciting, real-time conversations about polygenic traits and polygenic risk scores are happening on Twitter in real time. I strongly encourage you to follow Ewan Birney (@ewanbirney) and Cecile Janssens (@cecilejanssens) professor of translational epidemiology at Emory University, for her consistently clear and insightful comments on how we interpret whole genome data.

Why embryo selection for polygenic traits is wrong.

MAY 26, 2019 BY EWANBIRNEY

This week (May 20th 2019) has seen yet another splash by an American company offering a polygenic trait score on embryos including intelligence. This is wrong on a number of levels; ethically it is wrong to make this decision as an independent laboratory without broad societal buy in; scientifically it is wrong to imagine the ways we assess polygenic traits will translate into safe and effective embryo selection; for the specifics of IQ/Educational attainment trait this trait is so complex this is additionally unwise over and above any concerns.

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Let's now worry about designer babies ...

The Dawn of Intelligent Designer Babies

While selecting or editing embryos in favour of certain attributes may seem like a phenomenon of the distant future, the company Genomic Prediction in the United States has recently announced their advanced technology that would allow parents to screen for several complex traits, most controversially being low intelligence. This process would give the option of excluding embryos during in vitro fertilisation (IVF) that have a high risk of having “mental disability,” defined as an IQ of 25 points below average. While Genomic Prediction explicitly states that this will not be used to select for embryos with the potential for abnormally high intelligence, co-founder Stephen Hsu claims it is entirely feasible and states “I think people are going to demand that. If we don’t do it, some other company will.”

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