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Embryo Selection and Polygenic Screening
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# Embryo Selection and Polygenic Screening Portal: Reproduction & Development Stage: Commercially offered, contested Evidence: Early human Template: Practice framework Risk: Moderate Reversibility: Irreversible Last reviewed: Jun 2026 == Summary == Screening IVF embryos for common-disease risk scores is commercially available, but the predicted benefits are small, uncertain, and ethically contested. == Key takeaways == * Polygenic embryo screening ranks embryos by statistical risk scores for common traits and diseases. * The expected gain per embryo is small and the predictions carry large uncertainty. * Ancestry bias, pleiotropy, and consent for a future person raise serious ethical concerns. == What is being sold == Some companies offer to score IVF embryos using polygenic risk scores and rank them by predicted risk for conditions or traits. Prospective parents are given a relative ranking to inform which embryo to transfer. Polygenic scores are built from population studies and predict average differences across groups far better than they predict outcomes for a single individual, especially among the few embryos in one family. == Why the benefit is overstated == Selecting among a handful of sibling embryos shifts risk only slightly, and the estimate for any one embryo is uncertain. Scores trained largely on European-ancestry data transfer poorly to other populations, and variants linked to one trait often affect others in unpredictable ways. Beyond the statistics, selecting embryos on complex traits raises consent, equity, and normalization concerns. Major genetics bodies have urged caution, noting the mismatch between marketing and evidence. == Open questions == * Does embryo ranking produce any real-world benefit for the child? * How should marketing of uncertain predictions to parents be regulated? == Watchlist == * Regulatory guidance * Ancestry-diverse score validation * Pleiotropy and trait selection == References == * Problems with using polygenic scores to select embryos — Turley et al., NEJM, 2021. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr2105065. Analysis of the limited and uncertain benefit of polygenic embryo screening. == Categories == [[Category:Reproduction & Development]] [[Category:polygenic scores]] [[Category:IVF]] [[Category:ethics]]