In case you have not noticed, baby making is changing.
Our story today focuses on Orchid, which has pioneered techniques to help parents “have healthy babies,” as the company’s tagline states. Orchid does this by providing genetic screening services for parents and by performing full genome DNA sequencing on embryos produced during the IVF process. The DNA scan looks for potential issues that could give rise to myriad diseases, including birth defects, cancers and neurodevelopmental disorders.
The Orchid service adds thousands of dollars to the already expensive IVF process but has been a hit among the wealthy in places like Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. Embryos screening is controversial with some people objecting to the idea of weeding out “good” embryos from “bad” embryos. My guess, however, is that Orchid and services like it will become commonplace over the next few years and that the price for these services will come down relatively fast, making them more available to more people.
Along with Orchid, there are start-ups like Gameto trying to speed up and simplify the IVF process and others that we know about in stealth mode that are working on things like artificial wombs. Which is to say, the birthing scene is in the midst of undergoing some massive changes.
For the moment, Orchid stresses disease prevention, and I think many, many parents will flock to this type of technology. In the not too distant future, Orchid may offer up other services where parents can select for certain traits. Exactly how society chooses to react to that era will be fascinating to watch.
The New York Times recently published a long piece on Orchid, which you can find here.
In the meantime, enjoy the episode!
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