US startup charging couples to ‘screen embryos for IQ’

A US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement.

The company, Heliospect Genomics, has worked with more than a dozen couples undergoing IVF, according to undercover video footage. The recordings show the company marketing its services at up to $50,000 (£38,000) for clients seeking to test 100 embryos, and claiming to have helped some parents select future children based on genetic predictions of intelligence. Managers boasted their methods could produce a gain of more than six IQ points.

Experts say the development represents an ethical minefield.

The information has emerged from video recordings made by the campaign group Hope Not Hate, which went undercover to investigate separate groups of activists and academics. The Guardian reviewed the recordings and conducted further research alongside Hope Not Hate.

The footage appears to show experimental genetic selection techniques being advertised to prospective parents. A Heliospect employee, who has been helping the company recruit clients, outlined how couples could rank up to 100 embryos based on “IQ and the other naughty traits that everybody wants”, including sex, height, risk of obesity and risk of mental illness.

The startup says its prediction tools were built using data provided by the UK Biobank, a taxpayer-funded store of genetic material donated by half a million British volunteers, which aims to only share data for projects that are “in the public interest”.

Selecting embryos on the basis of predicted high IQ is not permitted under UK law. While legal in the US, where embryology is more loosely regulated, IQ screening is not yet commercially available there.

Asked for comment, managers at Heliospect said the company, which is incorporated in the US, operates within all applicable law and regulations. They said Heliospect is in “stealth mode” before a planned public launch and still developing its service. They added that clients who screened fewer embryos were charged about $4,000, and that pricing on launch would be in line with competitors.

Leading geneticists and bioethicists said the project raised a host of moral and medical issues.

Dagan Wells, professor of reproductive genetics at University of Oxford, asked: “Is this a test too far, do we really want it? It feels to me that this is a debate that the public has not really had an opportunity to fully engage in at this point.”

Katie Hasson, associate director of the Center for Genetics and Society, in California, argued: “One of the biggest problems is that it normalises this idea of ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ genetics.” The rollout of such technologies, she said, “reinforces the belief that inequality comes from biology rather than social causes”.

‘Disease-free, smart, healthy’

For Michael Christensen, Heliospect’s Danish CEO and a former financial markets trader, genetic selection promises a bright future. “Everyone can have all the children they want and they can have children that are basically disease-free, smart, healthy; it’s going to be great,” he boasted during a video call in November 2023.

Listening to his pitch was an undercover researcher for Hope Not Hate, posing as a UK-based professional looking to start a family. Over the course of several online meetings, the team presented their “polygenic scoring” service. Heliospect doesn’t provide IVF, but rather uses algorithms to analyse the genetic data supplied by parents to predict the specific traits of their individual embryos.

The team offered a guided tour of their test website, which is not yet public. During the presentation, they claimed selecting the “smartest” of 10 embryos would lead to an average IQ gain of more than six points, although other traits such as height and risk of obesity or acne could be prioritised depending on personal preferences.

Eventually, Christensen envisaged, the advent of lab-grown eggs would allow couples to create embryos on an industrial scale – a thousand, or even a million – from which an elite selection could be handpicked.

In future, he speculated, the offering might be extended to include personality types, including providing scores for what he called the “dark triad” traits. Dark triad is normally a reference to Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. Christensen said it might also be possible to develop scores for depression and creativity. “Beauty is something lots of people actually ask about,” he said.

When contacted for comment, Heliospect said it would not condone industrial-scale egg or embryo production or elite selection and that it did not plan to offer testing for “dark triad” traits or beauty.

Among the firm’s senior staff is the academic Jonathan Anomaly, who has sparked controversy after defending what he describes as “liberal eugenics”. A former Oxford University fellow who left an academic post in Ecuador last year to work full-time at Heliospect, Anomaly says he has advised the company on media strategy, and helped recruit investors and clients based in the US and Europe.

Anomaly is a well-known figure in a growing transatlantic movement that promotes development of genetic selection and enhancement tools, which he says should not be confused with coercive state-sponsored eugenics. “All we mean by [liberal eugenics] is that parents should be free and maybe even encouraged to use technology to improve their children’s prospects once it’s available,” he told The Dissenter podcast.

Heliospect was granted access to UK Biobank data in June 2023. Founded in 2006 by the Department of Health and medical research charities, Biobank holds the genetic information, brain scans, cognitive tests and the educational and medical records of 500,000 volunteers who signed up to share their data for life. The anonymised data it shares is credited with helping lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

In its application for access, Heliospect said it hoped to use advanced techniques to improve the prediction of “complex traits”. It did not disclose screening of embryos as an intended commercial application or mention IQ. When contacted by the Guardian the firm said cognitive ability or intellectual disability fell within the scope of its application.

UK Biobank said Heliospect’s use of the data appeared to be “entirely consistent with our access conditions”.

In the UK, fertility treatments are strictly regulated, with tests performed on embryos legally restricted to a list of serious health conditions approved by regulators.

During one of the recordings, the Heliospect team appeared to suggest it might be legally possible for a UK based couple to request the genetic data for their future children that is incidentally generated during approved tests on embryos and send it overseas for analysis. They also advised that a simpler option might be travelling to the US for IVF and stated that they would abide by any national regulations.

By late 2023, the founders of Heliospect claimed to have already analysed and helped select embryos for five couples, which had subsequently been implanted through IVF. “There are babies on the way,” Christensen said.

When contacted, Heliospect said that it specialises in genomic prediction tools with applications in embryonic screening and adult testing and that its authorised access to UK Biobank data is valuable in developing these products in a scientifically rigorous manner. It said that it is not seeking to circumvent UK regulations on embryo testing and that UK Biobank does not require companies to disclose the precise commercial applications of research. It said that it supports addressing concerns about preimplantation embryonic screening through public education, policy discussions, and properly informed debates about the technology, which it strongly believes has potential to help people.

In response to questions, Anomaly stated that, as a professor of philosophy, he had published provocative articles intended to stimulate debate and that “liberal eugenics” is accepted terminology in the academic field of bioethics.

The decision to grant access to Heliospect raises questions about the ethical criteria applied when granting research access to UK Biobank. Its controls are under scrutiny after revelations in the Guardian on Thursday that a “race science” research group claimed to have obtained its data.

Prof Hank Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford University, said: “UK Biobank, and the UK government, may want to think harder about whether it needs to impose some new restrictions.”

In a statement, Prof Sir Rory Collins, UK Biobank’s chief executive, said: “UK Biobank … has confirmed that its analyses of our data have been used solely for their approved purpose to generate genetic risk scores for particular conditions, and are exploring the use of their findings for pre-implantation screening in accordance with relevant regulation in the US where Heliospect is based. This is entirely consistent with our access conditions. By making data available, UK Biobank is allowing discoveries to emerge that would not otherwise have been possible, saving lives and preventing disability and misery.”