Designer babies

Abstract

Designer babies are either created from an embryo selected by preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) or genetically modified in order to influence the traits of the resulting children. The primary aim of creating designer babies is to avoid their having heritable diseases coded by mutations in DNA. With the development on mitochondria DNA transfer and discovery of genome-editing tools, the production of precise genome-edited designer babies is no longer science fiction. However, knowledge on the risk of these editing tools is insufficient especially when modifications are heritable. Furthermore, there are ethical concerns as to whether we should apply these technologies to create designer babies. We believe that these germline genetic editing methods should still be considered as experimental procedures and research should continue to improve the method and to assess its long term safety