January, 2035: The First Designer Baby Brought To Life

I write short science fiction stories to raise awareness about the massive ethical issues we will have to face when disruptive technologies show their full potential. This way, people can get scared, excited or just initiate discussions about how to prepare for the coming changes in health, disease and life. Waiting to disconnect Lydia from the artificial womb The birth of a baby is always one of the greatest events in the parents’ life. But the 21st of January was also a big day in the Digital Healthcare Facility in London, UK. Lydia, the first so-called „designer baby” was brought to life. Unbearable amount of press workers appeared on the hospital premises, almost squeezing out the medical staff. At some point, the DHF’s director issued a statement demanding representatives of the press to leave the building and gather in the newly installed press tent. The medical staff was also excited. Dr. Lee, the leader of the team responsible for editing the fetus’s genome with the CRISPR method, as well as Dr. Brice, who supervised the artificial womb, were visibly nervous. They looked at their phones in every 2 seconds waiting for the signal to disconnect Lydia from the artificial womb – the late 21st century version of a baby’s birth. Baby design + genome polishing There was a long way up until this moment. First of all, the “appropriate” parents had to be chosen for the first “designer baby”. Klara and Jonas Peterson proved to be good matches: in some resp...
Source: The Medical Futurist - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Medical Science Fiction CRISPR designer babies designer baby future GC1 genome editing sci-fi Source Type: blogs