Ethical minefield US startup charging couples to 'screen embryos for IQ'

US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement.

- Hannah Devlin, Tom Burgis, David Pegg, Jason Wilson

The company, Heliospect, has worked with more than a dozen couples undergoing IVF, according to undercover video footage. The recordings show the company marketing its services at up to $50,000 (£38,000) for clients seeking to test 100 embryos, and claiming to have helped some parents select future children based on genetic predictions of intelligence. Managers boasted that their methods could produce a gain of more than six IQ points.

Experts say the development represents an ethical minefield.

The information has emerged from video recordings made by the campaign group Hope Not Hate, which went undercover to investigate separate groups of activists and academics. The Guardian reviewed the recordings and conducted further research alongside Hope Not Hate.

The footage appears to show experimental genetic selection techniques being advertised to prospective parents. A Heliospect employee who has been helping the company recruit clients outlined how couples could rank up to 100 embryos based on "IQ and the other naughty traits that everybody wants", including sex, height, risk of obesity and risk of mental illness.

The startup says its prediction tools were built using data provided by the UK Biobank, a taxpayer-funded store of genetic material donated by half a million British volunteers, which aims only to share data for projects that are "in the public interest".

Selecting embryos on the basis of predicted high IQ is not permitted under UK law. While legal in the US, where embryology is more loosely regulated, IQ screening is not yet commercially available there.