Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“Polygenic embryo screening is a natural extension of two well-validated technologies: genetic testing of embryos, and polygenic prediction of traits in adults. Genetic testing of embryos has been done for decades, usually to detect chromosomal abnormalities like Down Syndrome or simple single-gene disorders like cystic fibrosis. It’s challenging – you need to take a very small number of cells (often only 5-10) from a tiny proto-placenta that may not have many cells to spare, and extract a readable amount of genetic material from this limited sample – but there are known solutions that mostly work. But most traits are polygenic, requiring information about thousands or tens of thousands of genes to predict. These are too complicated to understand fully at current levels of technology, but some studies have chipped away at the problem and gotten a partial understanding.” (07/31/25)
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/suddenly-trait-based-embryo-selection