Experts assessed the prospects of "genetic modeling" of children in the future

Genome editing technologies are developing rapidly, but creating "genetically engineered" children remains a difficult and largely unsolved task with serious medical and ethical risks. Experts in the field of medicine and biology told Izvestia about this on April 3.

"If modeling is understood as a child with specified qualities — appearance or intelligence — then in real medicine it is now neither safe nor legal practice," explained Evgenia Balashova, a gynecologist, obstetrician and endocrinologist at the Scandinavian Health Center.

According to her, modern technologies make it possible not to design the characteristics of a child, but to reduce the risks of diseases. In particular, genetic testing of embryos is already used in IVF, which allows choosing the healthiest option without severe hereditary pathologies.

Oleg Rukodayny, PhD, Head of the Department of Healthcare Organization, Drug Provision, Medical Technologies and Hygiene at the RUDN University Medical Institute, noted that genome editing technologies, including CRISPR, theoretically allow interfering with the DNA of an embryo, but such changes are transmitted to future generations and require strict control. He stressed that today there are risks of inaccurate editing and unpredictable consequences, including effects on other genes.

"In 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui edited a specific gene to make a patient immune to the immunodeficiency virus. Subsequent studies have shown that such a mutation can, on the contrary, shorten life expectancy," the expert said.

Unnatural Selection: Silicon Valley Tech Giants Create GMO Babies

How gene editing and analysis can produce offspring with high height and IQ for a lot of money

Irina Pronina, biologist and Head of the Department of Physiology, Human Ecology and Biomedical Knowledge at the State University of Enlightenment, noted that in the coming decades, technology could approach the creation of genetically modified humans. At the same time, she pointed out that the main problem lies not so much in medicine as in ethics.

"It turns out that parents will be able to order children with certain characteristics, which creates risks of loss of genetic diversity and social segregation. Thus, children become hostages of fashion for a certain appearance, and fashion, as you know, is a fickle lady, that is, in a few years, when fashion passes, such children will no longer be needed by anyone, they will turn out to be ugly, unfashionable. There are also risks of loss of genetic diversity, and therefore the foundations for evolutionary development. But genetic modeling can create artificial evolution," she said.

According to experts, at this stage, the key task remains the development of research and the formation of strict legal and ethical standards. In most countries, interference with the human genome is allowed only for medicinal purposes and without transmitting the changes to the offspring.

On the same day, Gennady Krasnikov, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), announced that in the future parents will have the opportunity to genetically "model" their child. He expressed confidence that this task will be solved in a short time. At the same time, he does not consider himself one of the supporters of the practice of "breeding such special people."

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.