US-Based Nucleus Genomics has announced their embryonic screening service, offering a complete genetic profile of embryos for $5,999 USD.The genetic analysis of the embryos provides insight into over 900 genetic diseases, including rare conditions like cystic fibrosis and hemochromatosis.It goes further into the realm of neurological "health," including traits like intelligence.It also includes the detection of appearance traits like eye and hair colour, height, male-pattern baldness, and severe acne..It identifies traits related to physical health, women's health, nutrition and metabolic conditions, heart health, and cancers. What is truly enticing is the price — according to Human Progress, most other companies who offer preimplantation screenings charge around $15,000-$20,000 USD. Here's how it actually works — individuals undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) can select between embryos that have undergone genome sequencing, "providing information on the disease risks and traits of each of these embryos, helping parents make an informed choice on which embryo they want to implant."The service provides "common genetic scores" for common genetic diseases and traits, which are "calculated by considering the combined impact an embryo’s common genetic variants have on their future disease risk or trait expression.".They can predict age-related conditions like Alzheimer's disease, by predicting an embryo's risk between the ages of 74 and 85 — the ages the disease is most likely to manifest. Nucleus Genomics claims, "One study found that when choosing between two and five viable embryos, selecting embryos with lowest polygenic scores for a complex disease can result in substantial reduction of an embryo’s relative risk for the disease.""The same is true for traits like height and intelligence. A study of couples of European ancestry showed that polygenic scores for height could capture up to a 2.5 centimeter difference across five embryos, while scores for intelligence could capture 2.5 IQ points," says Nucleus.
