A significant minority of Americans would favor genetic screening of embryos simply to boost their child’s chance to attend an elite university, a new survey indicates. According to the survey results, 38% of respondents said they would genetically screen IVF embryos for predicted academic achievement while 62% would not. Another 28% of respondents said they would edit the genes of IVF embryos to boost a child’s chance of acceptance at top colleges, while 72% said they would not. Soon after an embryo’s IVF conception, genetic tests can already find monogenic or single-gene traits or diseases like Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis, and some hereditary cancer syndromes. Most human traits are attributed to multiple genes and their complex interactions. Scientists are debating whether and to what extent multiple-gene polygenic tests can detect and evaluate the risk of cancer or heart disease or schizophrenia, as well as other traits such as height or intelligence.
