Planning to have a baby anytime in the near future? Well, if you were born a generation or two later, you might have been able to pick your baby out of a baby catalog! If scientific progress has things its way, it might soon become possible for couples to start choosing how their babies look. So you don’t have to pray for blond hair, taller kids, a boy or girl or an intelligent child anymore. Seems like all you would have to do is select these characteristics from a catalog, head over to the counter and start making your own designer baby. Certainly sounds scary, doesn’t it? Well, with the rapid advances made by science in the field of human genes, it might soon become possible to modify and change genes and as a result, designing your own baby could become entirely possible in the near future.

A number of genetic screening techniques are already being employed wherein embryos can be selected as per their sex and checked for disease-bearing genes. This leads to termination of the pregnancy or if the disease-bearing gene is analyzed at the pre-implantation stage, it is entirely possible to enable the pregnancy to be created using the non-disease bearing genes only.

OROGOLD discovered that a group of British scientists recently developed a “genetic MoT” test model that uses a new technique known as Karyomapping and provides a universal solution for screening the embryos for diseases. This technique is known to be much more efficient when compared to the processes that are already in use. The tests must be conducted on a two-day-old IVF embryo and they still need to be allowed for human use. But, these tests could actually mark an extremely significant change because they could allow medical experts to screen for genetic combinations that pose a higher risk of diseases like cancer, diabetes or heart diseases.

If the test is licensed by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, it could be available for about $3000. It might also be possible to cure genetic diseases occurring in the embryos by replacing the faulty DNA with healthy DNA using a process known as germ line therapy in the near future. This process has already been performed on animals, but it is currently illegal for human use.

These developing technologies of genetic alteration could actually open up an entirely unique set of possibilities and this could ultimately result in the “designer babies” concept. The technique is known as inheritable genetic modification and it basically modifies the genes in the sperms, the eggs or the early embryos, which allows the altered genes to be passed onto the future generations. So, the obvious question that arises is whether humans should actually be doing this. Moreover, could these therapies irreversibly alter the human species?

There are a number of countries that have already made genetic alteration or genetic screening illegal by law and the ethical issues surrounding these technologies are way too much as well. Scientific experts have welcomed the use of such therapies in allowing couples to eliminate the risks and ensure that they have healthy children. But to use these technologies for a non-medical or a cosmetic purpose would be to undermine humanity as a whole.