The notion of tinkering with an embryo\u2019s DNA \u2013 let alone creating designer babies \u2013 makes many of us recoil. But let us not forget the shock and horror at the news of the first \u201ctest-tube baby,\u201d Louise Brown, in 1978.<\/p>\n
After her birth, her parents received blood-spattered hate mail (and a tiny plastic fetus). Now we call it IVF, and no one bats an eye.<\/p>\n
Technologies that allow parents to pick and choose embryos based on genetic testing are already a quarter of a century old. But the dawn of CRISPR, a technology that can \u201cedit\u201d mutated DNA at the embryo stage, has raised the spectre of Nazi-era eugenics and identikit babies out of a sci-fi thriller.<\/p>\n
What if laws were in place to forbid scientists from using technologies to create the superrace we fear? What if we had consensus, and an ethical framework, to decide which embryos should live, and which should die?<\/p>\n
Such questions are the beating heart of science journalist Bonnie Rochman\u2019s new book, The Gene Machine: How Genetic Technologies are Changing the Way We Have Kids \u2013 and the Kids We Have, published in February.<\/p>\n