https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/11/14/a-slippery-slope-towards-designer-babies

SOON TWO biotechnology firms will begin to offer couples undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF) the chance to screen embryos before they are implanted in the mother’s womb. This kind of preimplantation genetic diagnosis has, for nearly 30 years, been widely used to test for chromosomal abnormalities or specific genetic disorders that affect only a single gene, such as cystic fibrosis. MyOme, based in Menlo Park, California, and launching in 2019, and Genomic Prediction, based in North Brunswick, New Jersey, have something more revolutionary in mind.

The two companies hope to reconstruct the important parts of an embryo’s genome using just a few cells from a biopsy and genetic sequences of both parents. With the resulting genomic data in hand, the firms can then, in theory, calculate the risk of the embryo developing a wide range of different diseases in later life. Crucially, the ailments in question may be extraordinarily complicated, involving thousands of genetic variants (common mutations) in different parts of the genome.