Personal Genomics Firm 23andMe Patents Designer Baby System

An anonymous reader writes "Consumer genomics company 23andMe has developed a system for helping prospective parents choose the traits of their offspring, from disease risk to hair color. The patent — number 8543339, "Gamete donor selection based on genetic calculations" — describes a technology that would take a customer's preferences for a child's traits, compute the likely genomic outcomes of combinations between a customer's sperm or egg and other people's sex cells, and describe which potential reproductive matches would most likely produce the desired baby."

Comments

Dating service to come?

[nitzmahone]

Hmm, sounds like the logical next step is a dating service to match those traits. Who's doing the cyber-squatting for 23harmony.com and eugenicsmingle.com?

Re:Dating service to come?

[gstoddart]

I've never seen the appeal of Mensa.

It sounds like being in a room full of people like the Comic Book Guy from Simpsons who like to stand around and feel self superior, when in actuality they're a bunch of complete wankers looking for validation.

Certainly the only people I've ever met who claimed to be members were best described like that.

Re:Dating service to come?

[Joce640k]

What happened to live and let live?

It's just a club, like a club for stamp collectors (or whatever).

Mensa might not sound useful to you, but they obviously think it is or they wouldn't be paying membership fees.

(And remember: They're smarter than you...)

Re:The Superhuman Future? Khan?

[ColdWetDog]

It COULD be used to screen for undesirable traits (but that's eugenics), it WILL be used to screen for 'desirable' traits - that's money.