A ‘Press Release from the Future’ Announces Service for Parents to Genetically Engineer Their Kids
Most people don't recognize how significantly and soon the genetic revolution will transform healthcare, the way we make babies, and the nature of the babies we make. The press release below is a thought experiment today. Within a decade, it won't be. * * *
Genomix Launches uDarwin, a New Business to Help Parents Optimize the Health, Well-Being, and Beneficial Traits of their Future Offspring
NEW YORK, July 29, 2029 /PRMediawire/ -- Genomix, a Caribbean-based health and wellness company, today announced the launch of uDarwin, a discrete, confidential service helping parents select and edit the pre-implanted embryos of their future children.
"Our mission is to help prospective parents realize their dream of parenthood in the safest manner possible while helping them optimize their future children's potential."
"We often fetishize nature," said Genomix Medical Director and Co-Founder Dr. Noam Heller, "but the traditional process of conception through sex confers risks on future children that can be significantly reduced through the careful and safe application of powerful new technologies."
Approximately three percent of all children are born with some type of harmful genetic mutation. Through its patented process of extracting eggs from the prospective mother, fertilizing these eggs with sperm from the intended father or from one of the superstar donor samples in the proprietary uDarwin gene bank, and screening up to twenty of these embryos prior to implantation, this risk can be brought down to under one percent.
"Having a baby is the most intimate and important experience in most people's lives," said Genomix CEO and co-founder Rich Azadian. "Our mission is to help prospective parents realize their dream of parenthood in the safest manner possible while helping them optimize their future children's potential."
In addition to screening pre-implanted embryos to significantly reduce disease risk, uDarwin uses its proprietary algorithm for the "polygenic scoring" of embryos to directionally predict potential future attributes including healthspan, height, IQ, personality style, and other complex genetic traits. Attributes once accepted as being the result of fate or chance can now increasingly be selected by parents from among their own natural embryos using this entirely safe process.
A premium product offering, uDarwin+, provides parents the opportunity to make up to three single gene mutations to their selected embryo to reduce a risk or confer a particular benefit. Among the most popular options for this service include increased resistance to HIV and other viruses, a greater ability to build muscle mass, and enhanced cognition. Additional edits will be made available as the science of human genome editing further advances.
Jamie Metzl's new book, Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity, explores how the genetic revolution is transforming our healthcare, the way we make babies, and the nature of and babies we make, what this means for each of us, and what we must all do now to prepare for what's coming.
"uDarwin is proud to be the first company in the world offering the highest level of reproductive choice to parents," Mr. Azadian continued. "Genetic technologies are allowing us for the first time to crack the code of our health and identity. As pioneers in applying the most advanced genetic technologies to human reproduction, we recognize that prospective parents' desire for the services we offer exceeds societal levels of comfort with this technology. Our highest levels of customer service, comfort, and confidentiality ensure parents can secure massive benefits for their future children while avoiding unnecessary attention or any compromise of privacy."
All uDarwin services will be carried out in the company's state-of-the-art clinic aboard a super-luxury 500-foot yacht operating in international waters. After applying on the secure uDarwin website and gaining approval, clients are provided a date, time, and location to meet a company representative at a conveniently located Caribbean marina from where they will be shuttled to the uDarwin clinic. "Pioneers have always traveled beyond boundaries to create new possibilities," Mr. Azadian added. "Conceiving a child in a location where it can receive the greatest benefits of advanced science is no different."
"Pioneers have always traveled beyond boundaries to create new possibilities."
The cost of the basic uDawin service is $5 million, with half paid up front and half paid following the successful birth of a baby. Charges for uDarwin+, premium sperm or egg donors, surrogates, and other services are additional. "uDarwin is not for everyone," Mr. Azadian said, "but most parents of significant means understand that the benefits of optimal genetics far exceed almost any monetary cost."
"The genetic revolution has already begun," Medical Director Heller added. "The question for prospective parents is whether they want to be the last parents who left the health and identity of their future children to chance or the first to give their future children the greatest chance of optimal health and maximal fulfillment in the new reality that will arrive far sooner than most people appreciate."
If you could genetically alter your future children, would you? https://t.co/N0tqwX4Qd3— leapsmag (@leapsmag) 1564426548.0
When a patient is diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, having surgery to remove the tumor is considered the standard of care. But what happens when a patient can’t have surgery?
Whether it’s due to high blood pressure, advanced age, heart issues, or other reasons, some breast cancer patients don’t qualify for a lumpectomy—one of the most common treatment options for early-stage breast cancer. A lumpectomy surgically removes the tumor while keeping the patient’s breast intact, while a mastectomy removes the entire breast and nearby lymph nodes.
Fortunately, a new technique called cryoablation is now available for breast cancer patients who either aren’t candidates for surgery or don’t feel comfortable undergoing a surgical procedure. With cryoablation, doctors use an ultrasound or CT scan to locate any tumors inside the patient’s breast. They then insert small, needle-like probes into the patient's breast which create an “ice ball” that surrounds the tumor and kills the cancer cells.
Cryoablation has been used for decades to treat cancers of the kidneys and liver—but only in the past few years have doctors been able to use the procedure to treat breast cancer patients. And while clinical trials have shown that cryoablation works for tumors smaller than 1.5 centimeters, a recent clinical trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York has shown that it can work for larger tumors, too.
In this study, doctors performed cryoablation on patients whose tumors were, on average, 2.5 centimeters. The cryoablation procedure lasted for about 30 minutes, and patients were able to go home on the same day following treatment. Doctors then followed up with the patients after 16 months. In the follow-up, doctors found the recurrence rate for tumors after using cryoablation was only 10 percent.
For patients who don’t qualify for surgery, radiation and hormonal therapy is typically used to treat tumors. However, said Yolanda Brice, M.D., an interventional radiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, “when treated with only radiation and hormonal therapy, the tumors will eventually return.” Cryotherapy, Brice said, could be a more effective way to treat cancer for patients who can’t have surgery.
“The fact that we only saw a 10 percent recurrence rate in our study is incredibly promising,” she said.
Few things are more painful than a urinary tract infection (UTI). Common in men and women, these infections account for more than 8 million trips to the doctor each year and can cause an array of uncomfortable symptoms, from a burning feeling during urination to fever, vomiting, and chills. For an unlucky few, UTIs can be chronic—meaning that, despite treatment, they just keep coming back.
But new research, presented at the European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Paris this week, brings some hope to people who suffer from UTIs.
Clinicians from the Royal Berkshire Hospital presented the results of a long-term, nine-year clinical trial where 89 men and women who suffered from recurrent UTIs were given an oral vaccine called MV140, designed to prevent the infections. Every day for three months, the participants were given two sprays of the vaccine (flavored to taste like pineapple) and then followed over the course of nine years. Clinicians analyzed medical records and asked the study participants about symptoms to check whether any experienced UTIs or had any adverse reactions from taking the vaccine.
The results showed that across nine years, 48 of the participants (about 54%) remained completely infection-free. On average, the study participants remained infection free for 54.7 months—four and a half years.
“While we need to be pragmatic, this vaccine is a potential breakthrough in preventing UTIs and could offer a safe and effective alternative to conventional treatments,” said Gernot Bonita, Professor of Urology at the Alta Bro Medical Centre for Urology in Switzerland, who is also the EAU Chairman of Guidelines on Urological Infections.
The news comes as a relief not only for people who suffer chronic UTIs, but also to doctors who have seen an uptick in antibiotic-resistant UTIs in the past several years. Because UTIs usually require antibiotics, patients run the risk of developing a resistance to the antibiotics, making infections more difficult to treat. A preventative vaccine could mean less infections, less antibiotics, and less drug resistance overall.
“Many of our participants told us that having the vaccine restored their quality of life,” said Dr. Bob Yang, Consultant Urologist at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, who helped lead the research. “While we’re yet to look at the effect of this vaccine in different patient groups, this follow-up data suggests it could be a game-changer for UTI prevention if it’s offered widely, reducing the need for antibiotic treatments.”