Scientists can make a ‘designer baby’

Scientist can now predict a person's physical appearance by examining their genes.

 

Researchers in the Netherlands and Sweden are aware that they cannot deliver 100% accuracy, but say their results are halfway between chance and fully accurate.

 

This technology brings the world another step closer to “designer babies” whereby parents will have the ability to choose what type of eye or hair color their babies will have.

 

In the study led by Professor Manfred Kayser in Rotterdam, it was found that the prediction for both hair and eye color is a lot higher than prediction for height: “I expect that upcoming new knowledge on height genetics will further increase the accuracy in predicting tall stature, and eventually the full range of body height, from DNA,” said Prof Kayser.

 

Researchers also believe that DNA-based prediction of physical appearance is useful in forensics for identifying unknown profiles:

 

“In forensics, DNA-based prediction of appearance traits such as height, eye colour, hair colour and age, is useful to find unknown perpetrators whose conventional DNA profiles are not known to the investigating authorities and who thus escape current DNA identification,” Prof Kayser said.