Before tying the knot, shouldn’t you know your partner’s genetic risks?

First Date
[A]nother technology is afoot that few people know about but that will upend the way we match and reproduce in years to come: the polygenic score. This is a single number that sums up someone’s genetic potential—risk for disease such as diabetes or predicted height or even the genetic portion of her IQ.

With the spread of recreational genotyping,…more and more Americans have learned some of what their DNA can tell them about their [ancestry]…and their future, such as their risk for diseases like Alzheimer’s.

What does all this have to do with dating and mating? Well, now that a computer app can take the raw data of our [genome] and spit out a single number…that predicts…someone’s height or risk for cognitive decline…[Wouldn’t] you like to know whether the person who just proposed to you is a walking genetic time bomb?

Rather than waiting for CRISPR to mature as a technology and then be refined for simultaneous use in thousands of locations in our chromosomes, it is much more likely that potential parents will merely screen their fertilized embryos to pick the “best” of the lot for implantation—whatever “best” means to that particular couple.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Dating and mating — decided by your genetic profile?

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