Designer Babies

 

 Started date:                                                                     Information:

1973-

Researchers learned how to combine DNA from organisms of different species. They learned that nature can be created in a laboratory and can be used on organisms including plants, animals, and humans.

 

1970-

The field of human reproduction adopts cattle breeding technologies in the form of in vitro fertilization.

 

1977-

Louise Brown created the first test tube baby.

 

1981-

The embryo stem cells produced.

 

1982-

Mice were used to to propose a new option for people to have genetic variations that are not present in either parent.

 

1984-

The first reported human egg donation was performed in Australia

 

1986-

Reports of successful human egg freezing reported in Singapore, Australia, and Europe

 

1988-

Human Genome Project is started, which is an effort to map out the entire DNA sequence in humans.

 

1990s-

Market for human eggs expands with expansion of fertility industry and growing interest among scientists in using eggs in research.

 

1997-

Scottish researchers report successful cloning of a sheep (Dolly) using an adult donor cell. This leads to patents that specifically cover human cloning.

 

2000-

The Human Genome Project releases a working draft of human genome.

 

2002-

NY Academy of Sciences discusses proposal to inject human embryo stem cells into mouse embryos to explore potential of embryonic stem cells. Fertility experts begin promoting egg freezing for women who want to delay childbearing.

 

2004-

The term “designer baby” made the transition from sci-fi movies and weblogs into the Oxford English Dictionary, where it is defined as “a baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in vitro fertilization to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics.”

 

2004-

California passes Proposition 71, "Stem Cell Research and Cures" Initiative, making the creation of clonal human embryos a state constitutional right.  Three billion dollars is authorized for this and related purposes.  Research proponents bring legal action in a failed effort to prevent feminists from publishing, in the Voters' Guide, information showing that cloning research would require hundreds of thousands of women's eggs, subjecting women to significant health risks.

 

2005-

International cloning scandal, centered in South Korea.  Researcher Hwang Woo Suk claims to have derived stem cells from the world's first cloned human embryos.  This proves to be false. Women were coerced into "donating" their eggs for research.  Nearly 20% of the women who donated eggs for the research end up suffering from Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome.  

 

2007-

Scientist at University of Nevada creates sheep after injecting human adult stem cells into a sheep's fetus.  Great Britain approves creation of human-animal hybrid embryos.  (In the U.S., similar research proceeds largely without regulation.)

 

2008-

January: Scientists at Stemagen Corporation in La Jolla, California announce they have created the first 'proven' human cloned embryos

May 11:  UK watchdog group, Human Genetics Alert, reveals that last year, researchers at Cornell University had created the world's first genetically modified human embryo, without informing the public

2009

 

February:  News reports reveal that The Fertility Institute, a Los Angeles based fertility industry chain, has advertised that it intends to offer embryo screening for cosmetic traits like hair and eye color, in addition to offering sex selection.    

June:New York State decides to pay women up to $10,000 for their eggs for research purposes. 

 

2010- 

May:  J. Craig Venter creates a self-replicating "synthetic" cell.  President Obama instructs White House commission to study issues raised by synthetic biology.

 

December:  Federal commission greenlights synthetic biology, ignoring concerns of 58 civil society groups in 22 countries.

 

2011-

New technologies being developed to analyze fetal DNA that is collected from women’s blood as early as five weeks into a pregnancy. So-called “noninvasive prenatal diagnosis,” or NIPD, may hit the market as a test for Down syndrome.

 

2012-

Birth of 30 genetically modified babies sparks up a debate over whether fertility experiments help hopeful parents conceive or if scientists are altering humaniting.  

 

2013-

Federal government is considering whether to allow scientists to take a controversial step to make changes to the process to specifically to create an egg with healthy mitochondrial DNA(mtDNA). Unlike the DNA that most people are familiar with — the 23 pairs of human chromosomes that program most of our body processes — mtDNA is the bit of genetic material inside mitochondria, living structures inside a cell that provide its energy.

 

2014-

A new technology created called the three-parent IVF uses mitochondrial DNA from a third party, not the nuclear DNA that determines all of the child’s characteristics. Three-parent IVF distracts attention from the procedures that actually do make it possible for women to have an extraordinary amount of reproductive control.

 

2015-

Rapid progress in genetics is making ‘designer babies’ more likely and society needs to be prepared. A new technique of  intracytoplasmic sperm injection where a sperm cell is injected into a egg cell. At the same time, they injected an enzyme capable of cutting bonds within DNA, alongside “guide” RNA to guide the enzyme to its target location in the genome.

 

2015- 

Improvements in genetics are causing designer babies to near ’100 percent efficiency’, a leading scientist has warned.

 

Background Citation 11-16