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23andMes designer baby patent
npg 201 4 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.
Notwithstanding its troubles with the US Food and Drug Administration (p. 1), direct-to-consumer genetics company 23andMe has been courting more controversy with the award in September of a designer baby patent. This patent (US 8,543,339), entitled Gamete donor selection based on genetic calculations potentially offers a means for couples in fertility clinics to opt for traits in their offspring. It follows another controversial patent, awarded to 23andMe in 2012, for variants associated with susceptibility for Parkinsons disease (Polymorphisms associated with Parkinsons disease; US 8,187,811). The data for these US patents are generated from 23andMes customer base. As the company attempts to navigate the ethical minefields related to its use of personal health information and patenting of data, a question surfaces, Is 23andMe doing research or business?
The designer baby patent describes an Inheritance Calculator for using genotypic information from donors and recipients to compute the probability of observing particular phenotypes, from eye color to predisposition to cancer. Sigrid Sterckx, professor of ethics at Ghent University in Belgium, considers the donor selection method to amount to an instrumentalization of both babies and reproductive partners, promoting a check-list approach to viewing...