https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/welcome-polygenically-screened-babies

 

Another thing I missed during my hiatus last year: the birth of the first polygenically-screened baby.

[conflict of interest notice: LifeView, the company that handled the screening, was co-founded by Steve Hsu. I’ve known Steve for many years now, he is very nice to me, always patiently answers my genetics questions, and sometimes comes to SSC/ACX meetups]

During in vitro fertilization, a woman takes drugs that make her produce lots of eggs. Doctors extract the eggs and fertilize them with sperm from a partner or donor, producing lots of embryos. Hopefully at least one of the embryos looks healthy, and then the doctors implant it in the woman or a surrogate parent.

For a while now, if the process produces enough embryos, doctors have used some simple low-tech genetic tests to choose the healthiest. For example, they might look for Down syndrome or other obvious chromosomal abnormalities, or for very severe monogenic diseases like sickle cell anemia. All of this is routine.