The Myth of the Designer Baby

Parents beware of any genomics firm saying it can help them with “genetic optimization” of their embryos

- BY ARTHUR CAPLAN AND JAMES TABERY

AN UNDERSTANDABLE ethics outcry greeted the June 2025 announcement of a software platform offering aspiring parents “genetic optimization” of their embryos. Touted by Kian Sadeghi, CEO of software maker Nucleus Genomics, the Nucleus Embryo service, costing thousands of dollars, promised optimization of traits such as inherited risk of heart disease and cancer, as well as intelligence, longevity and hair color. The company offered an analysis for left-handedness, lumping it in with aspects of “body and physical health” such as chronic pain. It also promised to weed out things that predispose someone to becoming an alcoholic.

That left one commentator, a venture capitalist, feeling “nauseous.” Critics worried that such a process “treats children as marketable goods.” More than one reference to “designer babies” and “eugenics” naturally followed. “The Gattaca Future Is Here,” read one headline, referencing the 1997 science-fiction film Gattaca, which imagines a dystopian future where genetically engineered “Valids” reign supreme over the “In-Valids” who were conceived the old-fashioned way.

As professional bioethicists, we would have those same concerns—if Nucleus Embryo actually did what it claims. But it doesn’t. The cinematic analogy to Nucleus Embryo isn’t Gattaca. It’s The Dropout—the 2022 miniseries about the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and her blood-testing company, Theranos.

To be clear, there’s no sign that Nucleus Genomics has engaged in the kind of intentional deception that marked Theranos, but there are striking parallels. Like Holmes, Sadeghi dropped out of a prestigious university to start his own biotech company, wooing enough Silicon Valley investors to launch his start-up.