Reprogenetics News Roundup #15
Emirates Woman on IVF, AI for embryo imaging, NYT on anti-natalism, Korean baby incentive, Blair & Hague's UK biotech report...
Welcome to the latest issue of the Reprogenetic News Roundup! Highlights from this week’s edition:
Repro/genetics
Gattaca Genomics’ Dr. Mari Mitrani interviewed in Emirates Woman on the future of IVF treatments.
Companies Alife and Ovation join forces to use AI for embryo image capture and cataloging
Population policies & trends
Companies Alife and Ovation join forces to use AI for embryo image capture and cataloging
The New York Times’ Ross Douthat writes on the varieties of anti-natalism and the demographic crisis
South Korea’s Booyoung Group offers employees $75,000 for each baby
Genetic Studies
On the genetics of bisexuality, Parkinson’s, risk of COVID-19 death, lass fever, heart disease…
Further Learning
Tony Blair and William Hague present policy paper for the UK to “lead the biotech revolution”
Upcoming: Congressional hearing on bioeconomy and U.S. National Security
Repro/genetics
“Everything to know about IVF treatments and the future of fertility” (Emirates Woman)
Emirates Woman interviews Dr. Mari Mitrani — co-founder and chief scientific officer of Gattaca Genomics — on the use of IVF.
Gattaca Genomics claims to have the most advanced and complete preimplantation genetic testing available for embryos.
On recent progress in IVF: “The IVF world has been advancing every year, thanks to hormone therapy to mature multiple eggs, quality/quantity control, embryo monitoring after fertilization can now be done in a separate environment like a time-lapse embryo imaging system which allows the embryos to be kept in a control environment without disturbing them while the embryologist receives high-definition images multiple times a day.”
On genetic testing: “Genetic testing for these embryos that are ready for implantation has also advanced to allow the experts have more in-depth information about the genetic component and therefore allow the reproductive physician to decide which embryos to implant first.”
Gattaca Genomics will be launching whole genome sequencing services this year “which will allow us to understand in-depth into the embryo’s genetic health. This will be very valuable for identifying many more risks of disease.”
Dr. Mitrani notes that after the age of 35 women’s egg quality starts deteriorating rapidly year by year and that freezing eggs can offer couples options should they want to have children later in life.
Responding to a question about adoption of IVF in the region, Dr. Mitrani noted that the United Arab Emirates has the highest infertility rates in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, mainly caused by the high prevalence of diabetes (19% as compared to 7% in the UK and 11% in the U.S.) and vitamin D deficiency (70% as compared to 20% in the UK and 42% in the U.S.).
Alife and Ovation join forces to use AI for embryo image capture and cataloging (yahoo!finance)
Alife Health, a fertility technology company building AI tools to advance IVF, announced today that it has partnered with Ovation Fertility, a U.S. fertility company and national network of laboratories, to pilot the world’s first embryo image cataloging software.
This software could enable future AI-powered embryo selection. Alife's Embryo Assist software enables embryologists to create digital records of every embryo, while leveraging an algorithm to help determine the best embryo for transfer.
“The Alife Embryo Assist software provides our laboratories with a structured digital approach to a rather manual and cumbersome process,” said Matthew ‘Tex’ VerMilyea, vice president of scientific advancement at Ovation. “I believe that by implementing Alife’s technology, we will see an improvement in lab efficiency and performance, which ultimately will help our network provide the best possible outcomes for every individual hoping to grow their family.”
Dr. VerMilyea and Alife have co-authored an award-nominated scientific abstract based on a retrospective analysis of 12,626 IVF cycles, which demonstrated that Alife’s model had non-inferior performance to manual embryo grading by five highly experienced embryologists.
Population Policies & Trends
“The varieties of anti-natalism — and the roots of a demographic crisis” (New York Times)
NYT op-ed contributor Ross Douthat writes on anti-natalist ideologies and the fertility collapse in many nations.
Darel Paul wrote in an essay for Compact that Europe has suffered a “stunning fertility collapse” in the last decade.
Douthat has been writing about pro-family policy for for most of his career.
He praises the House of Representative’s vote for a child tax credit expansion. However, he notes that pronatalist legislation is expensive and works primarily on the margins, being potentially swamped by larger trends.
Douthat argues that the “no-kids-because-of-global-warming narrative” seems importantly different from previous confirm about overpopulation, in reflecting a pessimism about one’s children’s prospects in a warming world.
But he argues that “Not the anti-natalism of despair, but the anti-natalism of bourgeois propriety” may be driving fall in birth rates. Namely “workism” — the prioritization of professional success, leading to a competitiveness that crowds out having children (apparently the situation in hyper-low fertility South Korea).
South Korean firm is offering to pay its workers $75,000 each time they have a baby” (CNN)
Booyoung Group, a construction firm based in Seoul, plans to pay employees 100 million Korean won ($75,000) each time they have a baby, it said in a press release. The benefit is available to men and women.
The company will also pay a total of 7 billion Korean won ($5.25 million) in cash to employees who have had 70 babies since 2021, the company added.
At 0.78 in 2022, South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate and that figure is expected to drop further to 0.65 in 2025, according to official forecasts from Statistics Korea.
CNN writes that South Korea, Japan, and China face a “demographic time bomb,” but that these have shied away from mass immigration to tackle the decline in their working age populations.
Booyoung Group’s Chairman Lee Joong-keun said the company is offering financial support to its employees to ease the monetary burden of raising children.
Employees with three babies will be given an option to choose between receiving 300 million Korean won ($225,000) in cash or rental housing, if the government provides land for construction.
“I hope we would get recognized as a company that contributes to encouraging births… and worries about the country’s future,” Lee told his employees.
Booyoung Group was founded in 1983 and has since built over 270,000 homes, according to the company’s website.
The South Korean government and other private companies already offer financial perks to encourage people to have more children, but none on the scale of Booyoung Group’s benefits. Similar programs also exist in China, which has seen its population decline for two straight years.
Last year, China’s Trip.com, one of the world’s largest online travel agencies, said workers who have been with the company for at least three years will receive an annual bonus of 10,000 yuan ($1,376) for each new-born child every year from the child’s first birthday until they reach the age of five.
Genetic Studies
“Is bisexuality genetic? It’s more complex than some studies imply” (Scientific American)
“Large study on Parkinson’s disease includes understudied populations” (23andMe blog)
“Study identifies key genes for Parkinson’s disease in young people” (The Hindu)
“A genome-wide association study for survival from a multi-centre European study identified variants associated with COVID-19 risk of death” (Scientific Reports)
“Genome-wide association study identifies genetic regulation of oestrone concentrations and association with endometrial cancer risk in postmenopausal women” (eBioMedicine)
“Lass fever fatality linked to genetic risk loci in African GWAS” (GenomeWeb)
“Heart disease risks assessed by mapping how gene variants impact signaling pathways” (GEN)
Further Learning
A New National Purpose: Leading the Biotech Revolution (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)
Former political rivals Tony Blair and William Hague have cosponsored a report calling for the United Kingdom to embrace biotechnology.
The authors argue that “biotech can be another building block in a reimagined state that improves and extends lives, hosts the companies of the future and sets up the UK for a century of success.”
The report focuses on “critical areas of focus for Britain”, including:
How to seize seize the global opportunity of biotech in the age of AI.
How data can be harnessed better to drive research and help create AI doctors that can complement GPs’ expertise by acting as personalized health advisors.
What needs to be done to become home to the next generation of superstar companies.
How to keep the UK and the world safe from global biothreats.
The report led to widespread media reports that Blair and Hague are proposing selling NHS medical reports to fund AI and biotech, a claim some analysts disputed.
Since Brexit, the UK has begun diverging from the EU in terms of biotech regulation, making it easier to do research and plant/breed gene-edited crops and animals.
Congressional hearing on bioeconomy and U.S. National Security
The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party will hold a hearing on 2 February 2024 entitled: “Growing stakes: The Bioeconomy and American National Security.”
Dr. Jason Kelly, chairman of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB), and former Undersecretary of Science and Technology Dr. Tara O’Toole will speak before the Select Committee’s members.
The Select Committee is dedicated to “working on a bipartisan basis to build consensus on the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party and develop a plan of action to defend the American people, our economy, and our values.”
More on evolution and biotech:
“Evolution led humans into a trap” (Nautilus)
“Congress should commit to US biotechnology leadership” (Boston Globe)
“Taiwan biomanufacturing company sets sights on becoming ‘Biotech TSMC’” (Focus Taiwan)
“Food fight: Cellular agriculture fears Florida’s proposed ban on cultivated meat” (Florida Politics)
GM crops not threat to national security, Nigerian biotech agency and society assure Senate (Nigerian Tribune)
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.