The 10 Most Advanced IVF and Fertility Centers 2018 The Most Advanced IVF And Fertility centres 2018 | Page 4

From the
Editor
H
ave you ever imagined that you and your partner visiting a
maternity and fertility clinic and while you are sipping
your coffee you are offered a menu card, containing
descriptions of embryos? Yes, that’s right! There are hundreds of
descriptions of the embryos that you can pick from, all made by In-
vitro Fertilization (IVF); from you and your partner’s egg and
sperm. Thus, handing it over to you, will you choose it? Choosing
the eye color, height, complexion, physic, or immunity of your
baby could be a possibility in the near future.
Although this idea of cherry-picking your baby’s phenotype and
talents fills most of us with a sense of dismay. Yet, some are
overpowering the taboo in a proposition to create ‘the perfect child’
or ‘a designer baby’. If there’s any kind of future for ‘designer
babies’, it might look somewhat like this.
‘Designer
Babies’
Future of
Parenthood?
DNA editing could one day develop into an option for parents
wanting to ‘alter the genetic characteristics of their child.’ Well
this day is not far now. The advancements in Genetics,
Biotechnology, and Genetic Engineering have opened the doors
wide open to manipulate and conceive customized babies. While
technologies like CRISPR Cas9 or RNA silencing combined with
In-vitro Fertilization could play an enormous role in curing
susceptibilities to cancers and dementia, or devastating genetic
illnesses, scientists have not ruled out the cosmetic uses as well.
The ethical repercussions of manipulating human embryos are
huge. Many scientists have raised queries over these technologies
and they have been termed as a ‘slippery slope’ towards the
alteration in human embryos. At present, researchers are only
permitted to genetically edit human embryos for 14 days for
research purposes, after which they must be destroyed. And it is
illegal to implant them into a womb.
Due to the high possibility of misuse of these technologies and the
interference it will create in the natural reproductive process, ethics
have not yet legalized the full-fledged study of these technologies
on human embryos. CRISPR Cas9, a genetic editing technique,
which acts like a molecular scissors to snip away bad DNA and
interchange it with healthy code, is reported to be most sought out
procedure that may pose as a prospective tool. However, there have
been reports recently that have suggested that the technique might
cause wide-ranging mutations in the DNA away from the
anticipated site. The researchers have warned the scientific
community that this may lead to important genes being switched on
or off, which may cause devastating conditions.
On a irrefutable note, it is safe to say that although these
technologies will pose as promising prospect for parents who wish
to customize the genotype and phenotype of their babies; the
ethical and scientific concerns need to be addressed with utter
scrutiny to make ‘designer babies’ a reality.
Sayali Rane
Sayali Rane