Reprogenetic News Roundup #8
Reprogenetic News Roundup #8
Boston Globe on selection, Progenesis enters India, PGD eliminate Meckel Syndrome, DTC genetic testing market, Chinese use of U.S. surrogacy services...
Welcome to this week’s Reprogenetic News Roundup! This issue at a glance:
Repro/genetics
The Boston Globe discusses American public opinion and practices on embryo screening for disease risk and human enhancement
Genetic testing company Progenesis enters Indian market
The Hindustan Times discusses common genetic diseases in India and their possible prevention
For the first time thanks to preimplantation genetic diagnosis, a Chinese family was able to have a child without passing on recessive genes for Meckel Syndrome
The direct-to-consumer genetic testing market is forecast to grow 18.9% per year, reacing $4522 million by 2028
The Federalist warns of the high proportion of Chinese nationals using U.S. surrogacy services (13.4% of the U.S. surrogacy market)
Scientists call to help UK IVF patients to donate unused embryos for research
Genetic Studies
Genetics, brain wiring, and intelligence (BBC Future)
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS): Japanese people and gastric ulcers, Saudi people and myocardial infarction, prostate cancer (multi-ancestry)
Further learning
The FT Tech Tonic podcast discusses transhumanism and human enhancement
NPR covers in vitro gametogenesis (artifical sperm and eggs)
Repro/genetics
“Would you do it if you could? Advanced DNA testing for embryos is here — and it’s fraught” (Boston Globe)
According to a Harvard survey, two thirds of Americans approve of using embryo selection to reduce risk of common diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
One third of a Americans say they would consider going through IVF for the sole purpose of such genetic screening.
Respondents are concerned such practices could also entail risks: “eugenics,” raising up false expectations for a child, and exacerbating inequality.
Todd Lencz, a professor of psychiatry and molecular medicine in the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and a leading researcher on the new genetic testing of embryos, said: “This has somewhat flown under the societal radar, but it’s happening. It’s not a question of if it will happen, or what the technology will be in three years. People are doing this now.”
Orchid announced it will now offer analysis of an embryo’s whole genome, rather than the more limited DNA tests that parents have been offered previously, at a cost of $2,500 per embryo, which would come on top of the costs for IV, which are typically around $15,000 per cycle.
Orchid is able to get DNA data from embryos comparable to that offered by adult blood or saliva. This may enable identification of risks for common polygenic diseases and single-gene mutations that lead to some birth defects, including “de novo” mutations that neither parent carried and cannot be caught by prepregnancy screening.
George Church, Harvard genetics professor and Orchid investor, says the technique can avert some of the serious genetic conditions that affect nearly 3% of children: “If you are in that 3 percent, there was nothing you could do about it. And here is something you can definitely do about it.”
New Jersey-based company, Genomic Prediction also provides polygenic testing services for embryos.
The cost of DNA analysis has been plummeting and the proportion of American births using IVF has been rising: it’s currently over 2% already or nearly 100,000 babies per year. Some type of genetic testing is already done in 45% percent of IVF cycles, mainly to increase the chance of a successful pregnancy.
Polygenic Embryo ELSI Research (PEER) is a federally funded research project — at polygenicembryo.org — assessing the implications of genetic screening of embryos for society.
One study the project supported found that polygenic embryo screening could cut almost in half a couple’s risk of having a child with schizophrenia or Crohn’s disease.
The two U.S. companies that offer polygenic screening do not assess nonmedical traits, but parents can obtain the raw data and get that analysis done elsewhere.
In the Harvard survey, though, one third of respondents supported screening for non-medical traits (such as academic or athletic ability).
Some bioethics argue couples have a moral duty to select the child expected to have the best life, under the principle of “procreative beneficence.”
“Progenesis marks Indian entry with state-of-the-art genetic lab and AI centre” (Biospectrum India)
Progenesis, a global genetic testing company based in the United States, has entered the Indian market with the inauguration of its first Genetic Laboratory in New Delhi and an AI & Bioinformatics Data Centre in Chennai.
Progenesis aims to raise awareness about genetic diseases and disorders in India. The company will use AI and other advanced technologies to provide non-invasive and precise genetic testing results, particularly in the context of IVF.
Progenesis has introduced the first online medical portal for Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT), making the process more convenient and accessible.
“Genetic disorders in India: Common types, risk factors, preventing transmission” (Hindustan Times)
Due, among other things, to the widespread practice of consanguineous marriages within various communities in India, there is a high prevalence of genetic disorders.
Dr. Sneha Sathe, a fertility consultant, said common genetic disorders in India include thalassemia, sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), fragile X syndrome, and Down syndrome.
Despite emotional and financial challenges, Dr. Sathe concludes IVF, preimplantation genetic testing and further technological advances “hold the potential to assist couples in establishing healthy families despite inherited genetic conditions.”
“First preimplantation genetic testing case of Meckel syndrome with a novel homozygous TXNDC15 variant in a non-consanguineous Chinese family” (Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine)
Meckel-Gruber Syndrome is a fatal recessive congenital disease leading infants to be stillborn or to die shortly after birth.
Preimplantation genetic testing enabled screening out the recessive gene in a Chinese family for the first time.
Direct-to-consumer genetic testing market forecast to grow 18.9% per year (Digital Journal)
Precision Reports forecasts that the direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing market will have a compound annual growth rate of 18.9% from 2022 to 2028.
The market is expected to grow from $1328 million in 2021 to $4522 million in 2028.
“America’s rent-a-womb industry lures an alarming number of Chinese nationals” (The Federalist)
The article warns against the popularity of the U.S. surrogacy among Chinese, which can help grant automatic citizenship to their children.
13.4% of people using a U.S. surrogate to have bear their child(ren) are Chinese, followed 2.9% being French.
74% of foreign nationals using a U.S. surrogate use preimplantation genetic testing (PGT), as against only 54% of domestic intended parents (an expression meaning parents using a surrogate).
75% of foreign intended parents use facilities in California.
The United States is an outlier in allowing international for-profit surrogacy. The practice is reportedly banned in the rest of the Anglosophere, many European countries, Taiwan, Thailand, and India.
More on repro/genetics policies and debates…
“Call to help UK IVF patients donate unused embryos after shortage hinders research” (The Guardian)
“Why anonymous sperm donation is over, and why that matters” (New York Times)
“[Irish] Ministers approve plans to recognise international surrogacy for first time” (Irish Times)
“The ethical dilemma of gene editing: Our reporter took your questions” (Washington Post)
“The intersection of AI and fertility: a game-changer in reproductive medicine” (The Health Site)
“Personalized medicine: The pros, cons, and concerns” (New Atlas)
Genetic Studies
Genetics, brain wiring, and intelligence (BBC Future)
Evidence from genetics and neuroscience highlights the importance of brains’ wiring, rather than just size, in intelligence.
While humans and chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA, small differences in gene expression can lead to whole networks of genes affecting brain development being activated.
“Large-scale GWAS including Japanese people identifies 25 new genetic loci for gastric and duodenal ulcers” (Q Life Pro, Japan)
East Asians have a high prevalance of peptic ulcer disease, but there are few large-scale GWAS dedicated to them.
A GWAS of 29,000 Japanese identified 25 new genetic loci implicated in peptic ulcers.
“Uncovering myocardial infarction genetic signatures using GWAS exploration in Saudi and European cohorts” (Scientific Reports)
GWAS of Saudi cohorts of an opportunity to discover novel genetic variants impacting disease due to high rates of consanguinity.
Saudi-only GWAS revealed several new genetic loci implicated in myocardial infarction.
“Brain volume in the hippocampus is influenced by genetics” (BrainPost)
80% of the variability of hippocampal volume is attributable to genetic variation.
Heritability of different parts of the hippocampus is also 80% on average, but also varies according to age and sex.
“Newly discovered variants tied to prostate cancer” (Renal & Urology News)
A multi-ancestry GWAS of almost 1 million individuals revealed 180 novel genetic variants associated with prostate cancer.
Some of the variants were ancestry-specific, with frequency of 1% or less in other populations.
“The first major set of genetic associations found in long COVID” (Drug Target Review)
“Heritability and genetic correlations for sleep apnea, insomnia, and hypersomnia in a large clinical biobank” (Sleep Health)
“Early to bed, early to rise might mean you are part Neanderthal” (Wion)
Twin study reveals health consequences of vegan diet (People)
Further Learning
Interview: “Jennifer Doudna believes CRISPR is for everyone” (WIRED)
WIRED interviews CRISPR co-founder Jennifer Doudna, at a time when regulators in the UK and U.S. are authorizing the first breakthrough CRISPR gene therapies (for sickle cell disease).
Doudna believes CRISPR will initially have most impact in food and environment: “I think many of us will experience CRISPR in the agricultural world before we experience it clinically. By the food we eat, and the environmental impact.”
FT Tech Tonic podcast (and transcript) on “Superintelligent AI — Transhumanism, etc.”
Anders Sandberg of the Future of Life Institute discusses Extropianism, a variant of transhumanism focused on human enhancement.
Sandberg: “The vision of a transhumanist future would be a future where humanity is not just modifying its external environment, but also modifies itself. It controls its own evolution, which might mean that me, individually, I enhance myself. I make my body and mind work according to my life project. But we might also, as societies, figure out better ways of organising ourselves in both connecting our minds through technology or markets or something else, and also having an expansive humanity, a kind of cosmist vision that humanity belongs in the universe and can go out there and explore it, terraform planets, add its own character to the vast cosmic symphony.”
“New humans”: GZERO World’s Ian Bremmer interviews Siddharta Mukherjee on the benefits and risks of human enhancement using gene editing, AI, and synthetic biology.
“A look at the international race to create human eggs and sperm in the lab” (NPR)
U.S. National Public Radio interviews the pioneers of research into in vitro gametogenesis (IVG), the creation of sperm or eggs in the lab based on other cells.
“Realising the benefit to healthcare through populationwide application of polygenic risk score” (European Society of Human Genetics)
“Glowing fingertips and green yes: first-of-its-kind monkey chimera born in China” (Science Alert)
Disclaimer: The Genetic Choice Project makes every effort to include only reputable and relevant news, studies, and analysis on reprogenetics. We cannot fact-check the linked-to stories and studies, nor do the views expressed necessarily reflect those of the Genetic Choice Project.