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Designer Babies
Innovators
 23andMe23andMe, the pioneering direct-to-consumer genetic testing company, was awarded such a patent in September. U.S. Patent #8,543,339 is titled “Gamete donor selection based on genetic calculations,” and among the inventions it claims is the idea of using genetic tests and COMPUTER programs to predict the likely traits of a baby based on the DNA of its parents. |  Human Genome ProjectThe Human Genome Project (HGP) was the international, collaborative research program whose goal was the complete mapping and understanding of all the genes of human beings. All our genes together are known as our "genome." |  Embryologist Jacques CohenIn the mid-1990s, embryologist Jacques Cohen pioneered a promising new technique for helping infertile women have children. His technique, known as cytoplasmic transfer, was intended to "rescue" the eggs of infertile women who had undergone repeated, unsuccessful attempts at in vitro fertilization, or IVF. It involved injecting the cytoplasm found inside the eggs of a fertile donor, into the patient's eggs. |
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 China Development BankEugenics is quickly becoming big business in China, where at least one genomics company is attempting to pave the way for parents to literally pick and choose the "best" embryos to obtain the smartest possible children. Quartz reports that the cognitive genomics (CG) division at the Shenzhen-based genomics company BGI is currently working on the controversial project, which could one day allow for pregnancies with "designer" babies. |
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