Designer Children

Apparently the PTO has considered issuing a Patent to a US company for the ability to select male and female gametes to "design" a child with certain features. From a Nature Genetics in Medicine  article the authors state:

...the US Patent and Trademark Office in June 2013, and it will issue as US Patent No. 8543339 on
24 September 2013. It contains claims to a computer system and to a computer program, but our focus here is on the patent’s claims to a method for gamete donor selection: 

“A method for gamete donor selection,1 comprising (i) receiving a specification including a phenotype of interest that can  b be present in a hypothetical offspring; (ii) receiving a genotype of a recipient and a plurality of genotypes of a respective plurality of donors; (iii) using one or more computer processors coupled to one or more memories configured to provide one or more computer processors with instructions to determine statistical information including probabilities of observing the phenotype of interest resulting from different combinations of the genotype of the recipient and genotypes of the plurality of donors; and (iv) identifying a preferred donor among the plurality of donors, based at least in part on the statistical information determined, including comparing the probabilities of observing the phenotype of interest resulting from different combinations of the genotype of the recipient and the genotypes of the plurality of donors to identify the preferred donor.”

It appears as if the company believes that by selecting male and female gametes based upon a full genetic determination of the parentage that one can determine the characteristics of the offspring. Surprise. Welcome to epigenetics. Things do not always work out that way.

Now perhaps the authors of the piece doth protest a bit too much. In fact one of them apparently got into a comment fight on a PLOS Blog of a highly respected Genetics Blogger. Thus this topic seems to have raised the ire of many folks.

The problem is that the epigenetic elements associated with combining male and female gametes is quite complex. Thus just choosing them assuming the genes are fine is at best an interesting first start but no guarantee.

This will be an interesting battle to watch.