A US Startup company offers rich couples to select its embryos for IQ and other favorable genetic features, which has raised ethical concerns.
Heliospect Genomics charges up to $ 50,000 to try 100 embryos and claims that their technology can help couples suffer children to choose children with IQ scores six points above or more about babies, according to The Guardian.
The company has already worked with more than a dozen couples, a covert video reviewed by the starting will be shown.
“Everyone can have all the children they want and can have children basically without illness, intelligent, healthy; it will be fantastic,” said CEO Michael Christensen in a video call in November 2023, according to the report. The call was registered by a covert researcher by Hope Not Hate, an anti-fascist group working to “expose and oppose the far-right extremism.”
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In the call, Heliost employees collect potential parents through the experimental genetic selection techniques announced by the company. An employee explained how couples could use polygenic score to classify up to 100 embryos based on “IQ and other naughty features that everyone wants”, including sex, height, risk of obesity and the risk of mental illness, according to The Guardian.
Heliost says that his prediction tools use Biobank data in the United Kingdom, a publicly funded genetic deposit with half a million British volunteers. The database allows researchers and scientists approved around the world to access them for “health-related research that are of public interest”.
The Law of the United Kingdom prohibits parents selecting embryos from the high IQ planned, but at present the practice is legal in the United States, even if technology is not yet commercially available.
The geneticists and expert bioethists told The Guardian that the perspective of selecting embryos for favorable genetic features is ethically questionable, as it could strengthen the idea of ”superior” and “lower” genetics. The hope of not hatred went further in his own reports, linking a good handful of Heliospect employees to people and publications that have supposedly promoted so -called scientific racism, or the belief that human races have inna -different levels of physical, intellectual and moral development determined by their genetics.
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The start of the beginning of the United States, Heliospect Genomics claims that it can help parents analyze embryos to predict higher intelligence and other desirable genetic features. (Istock)
Katie Hasson, associate director of the California Genetics and Society Center, warned in the comments to Guardian that embryo selection technology could integrate “the belief that inequality comes from biology rather than social causes.”
Heliospect Genomics did not immediately respond to the Fox News Digital Comments Request.
Heliost’s executives told The Guardian that the United States -based company operates within the limits of all law and applicable regulations. The company said it is currently in “furtive” and continues to develop its services before a planned public release. They added that couples who have analyzed less embryos were charged about $ 4,000 per service.
In the calls recorded by Hope Not Hate, Heliospect team described how their “polygenic score” service uses algorithms to analyze the genetic data that parents give to predict the specific features of their individual embryos. The company does not offer IVF services, according to The Guardian.
Christensen presented an ambitious view of how technology could develop, even suggesting that “laboratory grown eggs would allow couples to create industrial, thousand, or even one million, an elite selection,” said the report.
According to The Guardian, he suggested that future technology could be able to select personality types, including what was known as “dark triad”, that is, Machiavellism, narcissism and psychopathy.
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Blood samples from volunteers are labeled and ready to be stored in the United Kingdom Biobank on April 17, 2007 in Manchester, England. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
“Beauty is something that many people ask,” he added.
Heliospect told The Guardian that he does not lead to production of eggs or embryos on an industrial scale or elite selection and does not plan to offer personality screening services.
Among Heliospect’s senior staff are Jonathan Anomaly, a controversial academic who has defended the so -called “liberal eugenetic” or the idea that parents should use genetic technology to improve their children’s perspectives.
Anomaly told The Guardian that, as a professor of philosophy, he has published provocative articles aimed at stimulating debate and that bioeticists were a term accepted by “liberal eugenics.”
Records show that Heliospect obtained access to Biobank’s UK data in June 2023. In its application, the company said it was planning to use advanced techniques to improve the prediction of “complex features”. But Heliospect did not reveal screening embryos as a planned commercial request, or the IQ was mentioned, The Guardian reported.
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The Biobank of the United Kingdom said that the use of his data from The Outlet Heliospect seemed “completely consistent with our access conditions”.
Experts suggested to The Guardian that restrictions on access to databases such as the United Kingdom Biobank may have to be reinforced in view of ethical concerns about embryos screening.
“The Biobank of the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom government may want to think more about whether some new restrictions need to be imposed,” said Professor Hank Greely, a bioeticist at Stanford University.
Heliospect emphasized that its use of Biobank data in the United Kingdom is legal and complies with relevant regulations. The company told The Guardian to support concern about embryonic screening of pre -implantation through public education, discussions on policies and properly informed discussions about technology, which firmly believed the potential to help people.
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