I'm flattered, but I actually haven't gotten all the way to haploid cells yet. As I wrote in my preprint and associated blog post, right now I can get the cells to initiate meiosis and progress about 3/4 of the way through it (specifically, to the pachytene stage). I'm still working on getting all the way to haploid cells and I have a few potentially promising approaches for this.
I suspect that iterated meiosis where only 15% of the diploid cells are eager to become haploid is likely to apply a sneaky selective pressure for mutations or variations that favour that peculiar trait. That is likely to select qualities which are not advantageous to a whole multicellular human in the end, which could wipe out any advantages in selecting other screened genes.
Agreed; anything other than basic one-shot embryo selection (the kind that's already possible with IVF) that involves selecting for ability to reproduce in a strange way risks tilting the selection balance in strange and untested ways. It's not *necessarily* a problem but when operating at a level that far down sure seems like it could go wrong quickly.
Re polygenic scores, this is a recent article from a statistical geneticist with a pessimistic view of using polygenic scores to predict IQ in particular: https://theinfinitesimal.substack.com/p/genomic-prediction-of-iq-is-modern. I’m sure there are rebuttals, but it at least appears to be cogently and non-hysterically argued.
right, I saw that and that's why I'm a little more cautious, this is clearly a Reasonable People Disagree zone and I'm not prepared to hash out who's right and who's wrong yet.
Where are we at with sperm sorting tech these days? Last I heard it was very possible to sort X vs Y sperm, but much like IVF, the process itself introduces some damage.
One IVF cycle might produce 5 embryos because the bottleneck is eggs. If you can sort through lots of sperm quickly and harmlessly, you have more tries to find an exceptional sperm.
I wonder if anyone has done studies on whether just current embryo selection results in higher controversial traits. I’d assume that it has to help. Mono genetic disorders are not beautiful. Although IVF + embryo selection won’t get you all the way to Hollywood beauty unless you and your partner were already there, there is probably some gain even for controversial traits
>Recently, he solved this problem!
I'm flattered, but I actually haven't gotten all the way to haploid cells yet. As I wrote in my preprint and associated blog post, right now I can get the cells to initiate meiosis and progress about 3/4 of the way through it (specifically, to the pachytene stage). I'm still working on getting all the way to haploid cells and I have a few potentially promising approaches for this.
I suspect that iterated meiosis where only 15% of the diploid cells are eager to become haploid is likely to apply a sneaky selective pressure for mutations or variations that favour that peculiar trait. That is likely to select qualities which are not advantageous to a whole multicellular human in the end, which could wipe out any advantages in selecting other screened genes.
Agreed; anything other than basic one-shot embryo selection (the kind that's already possible with IVF) that involves selecting for ability to reproduce in a strange way risks tilting the selection balance in strange and untested ways. It's not *necessarily* a problem but when operating at a level that far down sure seems like it could go wrong quickly.
Re polygenic scores, this is a recent article from a statistical geneticist with a pessimistic view of using polygenic scores to predict IQ in particular: https://theinfinitesimal.substack.com/p/genomic-prediction-of-iq-is-modern. I’m sure there are rebuttals, but it at least appears to be cogently and non-hysterically argued.
right, I saw that and that's why I'm a little more cautious, this is clearly a Reasonable People Disagree zone and I'm not prepared to hash out who's right and who's wrong yet.
'Reasonable People Disagree zone' is a great phrase.
Whether or not it’s possible I’m not sure taking any trait to the extreme would actually be a good idea.
Sure it’s fun to speculate about 10 ft tall or 300 IQ humans, but can you imagine actually being that person?
1) https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/02/01/239624/the-transhumanist-diy-designer-baby-funded-with-bitcoin/
2) https://heritagemolecular.com/our_technology
Where are we at with sperm sorting tech these days? Last I heard it was very possible to sort X vs Y sperm, but much like IVF, the process itself introduces some damage.
One IVF cycle might produce 5 embryos because the bottleneck is eggs. If you can sort through lots of sperm quickly and harmlessly, you have more tries to find an exceptional sperm.
I wonder if anyone has done studies on whether just current embryo selection results in higher controversial traits. I’d assume that it has to help. Mono genetic disorders are not beautiful. Although IVF + embryo selection won’t get you all the way to Hollywood beauty unless you and your partner were already there, there is probably some gain even for controversial traits