A new startup wants to modify human embryos

In 2018, Chinese He Jiankui shocked the world when he revealed that he had created the first genetically modified babies. Using CRISPR technology, he edited the genes of three human embryos in an attempt to make them immune to HIV and used the embryos to initiate pregnancies.

The backlash against him was immediate. Scientists said the technology is too new to be used in human reproduction, and that altering DNA amounts to genetic enhancement. The Chinese government charged him with “illegal medical practices,” and he served a three-year prison sentence.

Now, a New York-based startup called Manhattan Genomics is reviving the debate over genetically modified babies. Its stated goal is to end genetic diseases and alleviate human suffering by fixing harmful mutations at the fetal stage. The company announced a group of “scientific contributors” that includes a leading doctor in the field of in vitro fertilization, a data scientist who has worked at de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences, and two reproductive biologists from a major primate research center. A scientist who pioneered the technique of creating embryos using DNA from three people is also participating.

“I like to take on challenges when I see them,” says co-founder Kathy Tai, a former Thiel colleague, who left college at 18 to found her first company, Ranomics, a genome-screening service. As Tai sees it, the challenge is to make the idea of ​​editing human embryos more acceptable to society.

The idea of ​​modifying human embryos is a tantalizing one, because any changes made to reproductive cells are heritable. Cut the disease-causing mutation from the embryo and it will be deleted from future generations as well. But gene editing technology also has the potential to cause unintended “off-target” effects. Accidentally modifying the wrong gene can lead to cancer, for example. These errors will also be passed on to any future children.

While newer forms of gene editing are more precise, there are still ethical issues to deal with. The prospect of being able to manipulate the DNA of a human fetus has raised fears of a new kind of eugenics, whereby parents with the means to do so could produce “designer children” with traits of their choice.

The goal of Manhattan Genomics — originally called the Manhattan Project when the company first launched in August — is to correct the disease, not improve it, Tai says. Unlike The original Manhattan Projecta secret US government program during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons, and Tai says her project will operate openly and transparently. “We’re revolutionizing medicine, and this technology is certainly very powerful,” she says. “I think that’s the commonality here between manipulating the nucleus of an atom and manipulating the nucleus of a cell.”