Genetic Screening of Embryos: Risks and Benefits

Just what genes you pass on to your baby has so far been mostly up to chance, but this is no longer the case. We now have the possibility to choose what traits our children will inherit. In this video I will talk about how genetic screening works, what different types of genetic tests there are, where they are legal, and whether it's a good idea.

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00:00 Intro
01:02 What is genetic screening?
04:45 What tests are there?
12:37 Polygenetic screening
19:38 Is it legal?
21:58 Learn computational biology with Brilliant

[strathadam]

We lost a grand-daughter in July 2022 due to a genetic disorder (CYFIP2 mutation). She lived for 9 months, the final 6 of those with a permanent feeding tube and progressively worsening seizures. Genetic screening could have prevented her suffering, as well as the pain and guilt my wife and stepdaughter are still dealing with. So yeah, I think there's definitely a time and place for it.

[connorm]

My sister and her partner chose to have genetic screening preformed on their embryos to prevent them from inheriting a dominant allele of gene that causes polycystic kidney disease. This gene is the reason why his father and many of his relatives have had to have kidney transplants, and why he too will inevitably have to have one, likely after years of dialysis as he waits for a suitable donor. The ability to finally end these genetic “curse’s” that have plagued certain families will certainly pave a brighter future.

[TheAxePhysicsDude]

My wife and I did this to screen out Duchennes Muscular Dystrophy. After having witness two close relatives die of it - we were unwilling to put anyone else though that dreadful disease. We have a beautiful child, who is free of the disease

[hp]

I am so happy we have people like Sabine who inform us based on thought out science and common sense to inform us.

[brothermine]

Another kind of genetic screening has been widely used for millenia: the choice of who to mate with.

[claudem]

Since life is already hard enough, and knowing that as parents we all want the best for our kids, I don't see the problem in choosing or modificating my kids DNA and giving him the healthiest and best genes possible to have.

[jgeur]

off topic but i'm wishing that one day you will address the recent articles running around the web concerning the earth's core spinning in a different direction. take your time with your research, i'll wait. thank you for your work, professor.

[vendasch]

My wife is a carrier of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. We were quite happy to have a possibility of genetical screening because there's no point in having a boy affected by this genetic disorder.

[AnonPXYZ]

I saved my brothers life, although temporarily via bone marrow transplant. And I would have been happy to do it again a million times.

[echodelta]

Thanks for pointing out that genes only come with a certain measurable probability for some traits. We are still able to have a huge impact on „shaping“ our children with external factors: food, emotional and physical availability, access to information/healthcare…etc..

[DavidSmith-kdmw]

I think Sabine did a good job of explaining this without forcing her opinions on the audience.

[spacedream]

In my opinion, that how real news should look like. Really good video, well done!

[kamikazekauz]

Hi Sabine,
There are some inaccuracies @14:05 that I would like to clarify: SNPs are NOT by definition associated with a particular trait. They are heritable substitutions of a single base that occur throughout the population at a frequency above 1% (i.e. at least 1% of the population has an A at position XYZ compared to the remainder of the population having a T, and these substitutions will be passed on to the next generation). They indeed can be associated with phenotypic traits (height, eye color) or disease disposition, but this is not a must. For this reason, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are performed to figure out which SNPs correlate with a certain trait or disease, and what gene(s) they might affect. Another point to clarify is that they do not always affect gene expression, which refers to the production of RNAs and, subsequently, proteins from the DNA pieces we refer to as genes.
Best

[richardfraser]

One thing to also consider, once you’ve screened out the genes for desease in one generation, they are gone for good. Not only have you helped your own children, but all of the kids down the line too.

[brian]

Selecting for desirable traits - sounds like an ideal playground for the Law of Unintended Consequences.

[mina_en_suiza]

We had our children at a very late age through IVF (didn't work naturally before). We did not screen the embryos, because everything looked very good in the early stage of pregnancy, but we screened ourselves because my partner has a rare blood disease which is rather harmless if passed on by only one parent but leads to a horrible and painful death in the first year of life if passed on by both.
I'm not opposed to genetic screening if it is for diseases, but very much against any searching for other traits.

[parsahasselhoff]

I think a major concern is that genetics doesn't work like a well engineered machine where you can improve a module without (adversely) affecting the others.

[alexandersanchez]

Yes, we need to allow parents the option to do this analysis; the alternative would be tantamount to giving the state control of which genes can propagate.

That said, a big part of the genetic algorithm is valley crossing. So, over-specifying the genotype is likely ultimately counterproductive.

[walnutclose]

Great explanation of the current state of the medical art, and of regulation. Thanks.

It may be worth noting that as long as we limit the conversation to genetic screening for embryo selection, this gets increasingly complex to the point of near impossibility for parents, once you introduce polygenetic screening for any significant number of phenotypic traits. One is never screening very many embryos, after all, and while the likelihood of finding one in fewer than ten that has none of a list of rare genetic diseases may be pretty good, (since most parents won't be at risk of passing on most diseases), but finding one with the "right" balance of cancer risk for many cancers, other disease risk, predicted height, predicted weight, predicted IQ, predicted whatever would be a mind-bending ethical optimization problem for parents. Every one has some score on all these traits, and optimizing among them is ... really hard, given that you won't have many combinations to choose from. Is 20% greater cancer risk a worthwhile trade-off, for 5 iq points, and 30% reduced risk of obesity, for your child?

[gefginn]

Great post Sabine. I appreciate all the information you are sharing here. I always enjoy tuning into your newest post. 💛