A US startup is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement.
The company, Heliospect Genomics, has worked with more than a dozen couples undergoing IVF, according to classified video footage. The recordings show that the company markets its services for up to $50,000 (£38,000) to clients who want to test 100 embryos, and claims to have helped some parents choose future children based on genetic predictions of intelligence. Managers boasted that their methods could produce a gain of more than six IQ points.
Experts say the development represents an ethical minefield.
The information emerged from video recordings made by campaign group Hope Not Hate, which went undercover to investigate separate groups of activists and academics. The Guardian reviewed the recordings and conducted further research with Hope Not Hate.
The footage appears to show experimental genetic selection techniques being advertised to prospective parents. A Heliospect employee, who helped the company recruit customers, detailed how couples can rank up to 100 embryos based on “IQ and the other naughty traits everyone wants,” including sex, height, risk of obesity and risk of mental illness.
The startup says its prediction tools are built using data provided by the UK Biobank, a taxpayer-funded store of genetic material donated by half a million UK volunteers, which aims to only share data for projects that are “in the public domain interest” is
The selection of embryos on the basis of predicted high IQ is not permitted under UK law. Although legal in the US, where embryology is more loosely regulated, IQ screening is not yet commercially available there.
Asked for comment, executives at Heliospect said the company, which is incorporated in the US, operates within all applicable laws and regulations. They said Heliospect is in ‘stealth mode’ ahead of a planned public launch and is still developing its service. They added that customers who screened fewer embryos were charged about $4,000, and that prices at launch would be in line with competitors.
Leading geneticists and bioethicists said the project raised a host of moral and medical issues.
Dagan Wells, professor of reproductive genetics at the University of Oxford, asked: “Is this a test too far, do we really want it? It feels to me like this is a debate that the public hasn’t really had an opportunity to have. doesn’t have to get fully involved at this stage.”
Katie Hasson, associate director of the Center for Genetics and Society, in California, argued: “One of the biggest problems is that it normalizes this idea of ’superior’ and ‘inferior’ genetics.” The deployment of such technologies, she said, “reinforces the belief that inequality comes from biological rather than social causes”.
‘Disease-free, smart, healthy’
For Michael Christensen, Heliospect’s Danish CEO and a former trader in financial markets, genetic selection promises a bright future. “Everyone can have all the children they want and they can have children who are basically disease-free, smart, healthy; it’s going to be great,” he boasted during a November 2023 video call.
He had his pitch listened to by an undercover researcher for Hope Not Hate, posing as a British professional looking to start a family. Over the course of several online meetings, the team presented their “polygenic scoring” service. Heliospect does not provide IVF, but instead uses algorithms to analyze the genetic data provided by parents to predict the specific characteristics of their individual embryos.
The team offered a guided tour of their test site, which is not yet public. During the presentation, they claimed that choosing the “smartest” of 10 embryos would result in an average IQ increase of more than six points, although other characteristics such as height and risk of obesity or acne could be prioritized depending on personal preferences .
Eventually, Christensen envisioned, the advent of lab-grown eggs would enable couples to create embryos on an industrial scale—a thousand, or even a million—from which an elite selection could be handpicked.
In the future, he speculated, the offering could be expanded to include personality types, including providing scores for what he called the “dark triad” traits. Dark triad is usually a reference to Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. Christensen said it may also be possible to develop scores for depression and creativity. “Beauty is something that a lot of people actually ask about,” he said.
Asked for comment, Heliospect said it would not endorse industrial-scale egg or embryo production or elite selection and that it did not intend to offer testing for “dark triad” traits or beauty.
Among the firm’s senior staff is the academic Jonathan Anomaly, who has sparked controversy after defending what he describes as “liberal eugenics”. A former Oxford University fellow who left an academic position in Ecuador last year to work full-time at Heliospect, Anomaly says he advised the company on media strategy, and helped recruit investors and clients in the US and Europe.
Anomaly is a well-known figure in a growing transatlantic movement promoting the development of genetic selection and enhancement tools, which he says should not be confused with coercive state-sponsored eugenics. “All we mean by [liberal eugenics] is that parents should be free and perhaps even encouraged to use technology to improve their children’s prospects once it is available,” he told The Dissenter podcast.
Heliospect was granted access to UK Biobank data in June 2023. Biobank, established in 2006 by the Department of Health and medical research charities, holds the genetic information, brain scans, cognitive tests and the educational and medical records of 500,000 volunteers who have signed up to share their data for life. The anonymized data it shares is credited with helping lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
In its application for access, Heliospect said it hoped to use advanced techniques to improve the prediction of “complex properties”. It did not disclose embryo screening as an intended commercial application or mention IQ. When contacted by the Guardian, the firm said cognitive ability or intellectual disability fell within the scope of its application.
UK Biobank said it appeared Heliospect’s use of the data was “fully in line with our terms of access”.
In the UK, fertility treatments are tightly regulated, with tests carried out on embryos legally restricted to a list of serious health conditions approved by regulators.
During one of the recordings, the Heliospect team suggested that it would be legally possible for a couple in the UK to request the genetic data for their future children that happens to be generated during approved tests on embryos and send it overseas for analysis. They also advised that a simpler option might be to travel to the US for IVF and said they would abide by any national regulations.
By late 2023, the founders of Heliospect claimed to have already analyzed and helped select embryos for five couples, which were then implanted through IVF. “There are babies on the way,” Christensen said.
When asked, Heliospect said it specializes in genomic prediction tools with applications in embryonic screening and adult testing and that its authorized access to UK Biobank data is valuable in developing these products in a scientifically rigorous manner. It said it does not seek to circumvent UK regulations on embryo testing and that UK Biobank does not require companies to disclose the exact commercial applications of research. It said it supports addressing concerns about preimplantation embryonic screening through public education, policy discussions and properly informed debates about the technology, which it strongly believes has potential to help people.
In response to questions, Anomaly said that as a professor of philosophy he had published provocative articles intended to stimulate debate and that “liberal eugenics” was accepted terminology in the academic field of bioethics.
The decision to grant access to Heliospect raises questions about the ethical criteria applied when granting research access to UK Biobank. His controls are then scrutinized revelations in the Guardian on Thursday that a “race science” research group claimed to have obtained his data.
Prof Hank Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford University, said: “UK Biobank and the UK government may want to think harder about whether it should introduce some new restrictions.”
In a statement, Prof Sir Rory Collins, UK Biobank’s chief executive, said: “UK Biobank … has confirmed that its analyzes of our data were used solely for their approved purpose of generating genetic risk scores for specific conditions, and is investigating the use of it. of their findings for pre-implantation screening in accordance with relevant regulations in the USA where Heliospect is based. This is completely in accordance with our terms of access. By making data available, UK Biobank enables discoveries that would not have been possible otherwise, saving lives and preventing disability and misery.”
