According to New Scientist, in 2025, three separate startups—Manhattan Genomics, Preventive, and Bootstrap Bio—announced their intentions to create gene-edited human babies. Columnist Michael Le Page argues that while editing embryos will likely become routine in a future civilization, the current approach by these companies is premature and problematic. Two firms, Manhattan Genomics and Preventive, claim their goal is to prevent serious inherited diseases like Huntington’s and sickle cell, but existing IVF screening methods already accomplish this for most cases. The science itself remains risky, with issues like mosaicism—where edits aren’t uniform across an embryo—acting as a major “showstopper.” Furthermore, some startups are reportedly considering conducting experiments in countries with laxer laws, operating outside the kind of open, regulated frameworks that successfully guided mitochondrial donation in the UK and Australia.
The hype vs. the reality
Here’s the thing: the core idea isn’t crazy. Eventually, we probably will edit our kids’ genes. Nature’s R&D process is brutal and random, and if we can safely correct devastating mutations, why wouldn’t we? But that’s a massive “if.” The startups‘ stated justification feels shaky. Manhattan Genomics says editing could help when couples don’t have enough healthy IVF embryos to select from, estimating it might help maybe 10-35 embryos per year for specific diseases. That’s an incredibly tiny number. And the trade-off is huge: you’re swapping a proven, low-risk screening process for an experimental, high-risk editing procedure where you can’t even be sure the edit worked correctly in all of the embryo’s cells. It just doesn’t add up. So why the rush?
A roadmap exists, but they’re ignoring it
We actually have a playbook for how to do this responsibly. Look at mitochondrial donation in the UK and Australia. It was illegal, then there was years of public consultation, ethical review, and careful, case-by-case trials under regulatory oversight. That’s how you build public trust and robust science. What these startups are reportedly considering—shopping for friendly jurisdictions—is the exact opposite. It’s the “move fast and break things” ethos applied to human life. And we’ve seen this movie before: when a rogue scientist in China created the first CRISPR babies in 2018, it resulted in a global moratorium and set the field back years. Doing this in the shadows again won’t advance science; it’ll just make people distrust it more.
Follow the money and the motivation
So what’s the real goal? For Preventive, whose investors include big names like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, you have to wonder. If the aim is truly to eradicate genetic disease, funding non-profit research would be far more effective. But the third company, Bootstrap Bio, is openly about enhancement, not therapy. That makes the whole landscape smell different. It starts to look less like a humanitarian mission and more like a tech-bro fantasy of designing superior offspring. That’s a surefire way to trigger a massive public and political backlash that could lock this technology away for decades. Basically, they’re risking the entire future of the field for what seems like a vanity project or a poorly conceived business model.
The long road ahead
The science needs to mature, full stop. We need better ways to ensure edits are precise and uniform, and we need to understand the long-term consequences. The article mentions cloning edited stem cells as a potential method, but cloned animals have serious health issues. That’s not a foundation you build on. I think the columnist is right: gene-edited babies are in our future. But we’re talking decades, not years. The path there requires painstaking, transparent research, not secretive startups chasing hype. The danger isn’t the technology itself; it’s the people who are in too much of a hurry to use it, who could ruin it for everyone else. And honestly, shouldn’t we get this right?
