

Build-a-Baby gets patented by 23andMe. Cue outrage. - fortepianissimo
http://pandodaily.com/2013/10/02/build-a-baby-gets-patented-by-23andme-cue-outrage/

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a_bonobo
I think this is more gimmick than anything else, like most of the services
personal genomics companies provide.

SNPs don't tell you much about a person's perceived "beauty" and probably tell
you only little about disease risks, and there are myriads of problems in the
current literature of SNP-associations. Many associations (which go into this
baby predictor thing) turn out to be unreproducible once you check a more
diverse, or a bigger set of humans for associations. If you search Google
Scholar for "failure to replicate GWAS" you'll get 1940 results for 2013
alone.

The only predictions that work are the phenotypes you get from your population
history: eye color, hair color, skin color etc. But to predict that you don't
need SNPs, you only need eyes. That's also cheaper.

Edit: I'm not saying that GWAS are crap all in all - they're useful in science
in identifying candidate regions which may harbor genes related to favorable
traits like resistance to a certain disease etc. They're just not very useful
overall for private customers.

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matthewbaker
Reading this comments constitutes an NDA signature:

Wrap a dating service around this and we can finally bring back the eugenics
movement.

OkSuperiorRace.com? PlentyofPerfects.com? eSuperhumanarmony.com?

With your special financial contribution, we can make this dream come true!

