Polygenic screening is a method for modifying the traits of future children via embryo selection. If that sounds like gobbledygook, then think of it a bit like choosing stats for your baby.

That may sound amazing. It may sound like science fiction. It may even sound horribly dystopian. But whatever your feelings, it is in fact possible. And these benefits are available right now for a price that, while expensive, is within reach for most middle-class families.

On a more serious note, there is limited selection power available with today's technologies, so you will not be able to have a baby Einstein unless you are already a Nobel laureate. But polygenic screening will allow you to decrease your child's risk of common diseases by 10-60%, reduce their risk of mental disorders, and increase their IQ by somewhere between 3 and 10 points. Including the cost of IVF and testing, these benefits are available for between $30k-100k depending on the mother's age, how strong of a benefit you want and what kinds of traits you want to select for.

There has been quite a bit of discussion of this topic on LessWrong and adjacent communities but very little concrete advice for would-be parents who are curious whether the benefits are worth the price, particularly for those who have no other reason to do IVF. The purpose of this post is to fill that gap by addressing costs, potential medical complications, choice of clinic, which labs are best, and how age and infertility diagnosis affect the expected benefits.

This is a long post and I expect most people will not want to read the whole thing. If this is you, please use the section selector in the sidebar to navigate to the section you are most interested in. You may want to simply skip to the section titled "The Benefits of Polygenic Embryo Screening".

Background on IVF

A diagram showing the steps in an IVF cycle. Source

Wait, what even is polygenic embryo selection?

Embryo selection is all about picking an embryo to (hopefully) turn into a baby. This occurs during the process of In-Vitro Fertilization, or IVF. In the typical IVF cycle, a couple goes into a fertility clinic because they want to have a baby. Usually this is because they’ve been having trouble conceiving naturally, but couples also seek out IVF when they want to do genetic testing, select the sex of their child, or to preserve fertility for later pregnancy.

The doc...

Human Genetics