Designer Babies

Designer babies are babies whose genetic makeup was selected or modified at the embryo stage to ensure the presence or absence of certain characteristics. To create designer babies, scientists use a combination of genetic engineering and reproductive technologies in vitro, which are processes that take place outside of the human body in a laboratory setting. Prospective parents who carry genes associated with inherited diseases, for example, may choose to use genetic technologies to select or alter embryos to avoid passing the condition down to their children. The first designer baby, Adam Nash, was born in 2000 after researchers at the Reproductive Genetics Institute in Chicago, Illinois, used genetic screening to select an embryo without the marker for Fanconi anemia, a...