The past year has seen some interesting see-sawing in the politics of HGM. The Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing in 2023, and the launch of the International Declaration Against Legalisation of Human Genetic Modification seemed to open a new era, where HGM had possibly lost some of its appeal to scientists. Thanks to efforts from critical voices inside and outside the summit, the document released at the conclusion of the 2023 summit stated: “Heritable human genome editing remains unacceptable at this time. Public discussions and policy debates continue and are important for resolving whether this technology should be used.” It seemed that both ethical controversies (see here and here) and technical difficulties (here and here for recent findings) made HGM seem difficult.
In 2024, a joint initiative of civil society organisations in the US issued a powerful statement, with a proposal for “Social Justice and Human Rights Principles for Global Deliberations on Heritable Human Genome Editing”, which was consistent with the new caution.
2025 witnessed a string of surprising back and forth on the issue of HGM. The year started with an article arguing for the benefit of not only modifying a single disease gene in embryos, but multiple genes. The authors, known for their leaning towards the liberal version of eugenics, pushed for the development of “Polygenic genome editing in human embryos” which they called “heritable polygenic editing” (HPE). The proposal was quickly criticised by other scientists, who are not opposed in principle to HGM, but argued that HPE “involves considerable risk and uncertain benefits”.
Not long after, this was followed by an international call for a 10-year moratorium on HGE, by the International Society of Cell and Gene Therapy, an extremely significant move. This body which represents scientists developing genetic therapies for treatment of patients was no doubt concerned that more moves towards HGM would result in a public backlash against those therapies and companies.
The tech billionaires of the Sillicon Valley, emboldened by the re-election of Donald Trump and their alliance with him are, however, uninterested in restraint. As documented by coalition members, the Center for Genetics and Society and Stop Designer Babies UK, the ‘techbros’ have long held a trans-humanist and techno-utopian ideology, and in the last two years have begun supporting the more traditionally eugenic ‘pro-natalist movement’. Following an initial announcement by Brian Armstrong, CEO of the cryptocurrency company Coinbase) that he would fund a start-up company to develop HGM technologies, the Silicon Valley techbros, including Sam Altman of Open AI and guru of the new ‘tech right’, Peter Thiel, have followed suit. They seem to be engaging in a race to be the first to create genetically modified human beings.
Armstrong’s website reports no less than 11 startups or academic laboratories who are now working on embryo editing: Egli Lab, Mitalipov Lab, Niakan Lab, Bootstrap Bio, The Embryo Corporation, Huang Lab, Jiankui He Lab, Lovell-Badge Lab, Mammoth Bio, Manhattan Genomics, Preventive.
The ‘Gattaca stack’ refers to the commercialisation project of a set of designer baby technologies to “advance human evolution [through an] industrial revolution for human reproduction”: polygenic embryo screening (especially its use to purportedly screen embryos for IQ), in vitro gametogenesis (lab-made eggs and sperm, see newsletter item below), HGM (also termed embryo editing or reproductive gene editing) and artificial wombs.
The convergence and commercialisation of designer baby technologies, supercharged by Silicon Valley’s wealth and distorted visions of the future, are sending us hurtling toward a world of industrial-scale production of genetically engineered humans – one designed to establish current tech/economic elites as future biological elites. In the context of a worldwide upsurge in right-wing authoritarianism, this is a terrifying prospect. Now is the time for urgent action to prevent heritable genome editing and preserve our hopes for a just and inclusive future.