Silicon Valley power players are bankrolling a new frontier that many experts say crosses every ethical line imaginable: genetically engineered human embryos.
Backed by some of the biggest names in tech, newly funded startups are pushing ahead with research that could one day produce lab-designed children, all while operating in legal gray zones and openly eyeing foreign jurisdictions to dodge U.S. restrictions.
The Wall Street Journal first exposed the rapidly developing effort, revealing that startups like Preventive, founded earlier this year by CRISPR scientist Lucas Harrington, are securing millions to explore embryo editing.
Their pitch is eliminating hereditary diseases.
However, the push is triggering major concerns that it is opening the door to designer babies and a future dictated by tech-driven eugenics.
Millions Flow from Silicon Valley Elites
Preventive has already raised $30 million from elite investors, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
The San Francisco–based company calls itself a public-benefit corporation devoted to the “responsible advancement of genome editing technologies applied before birth to benefit humanity.”
Harrington, who trained under Nobel-winning CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna, insists the firm’s mission is humanitarian, targeting devastating genetic illnesses like sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis.
“We are not trying to rush things,” he told the Journal.
“We are committed to transparency in our research and will publish our findings, whether positive or negative.”
But behind the scenes, sources told the paper that the company has already examined other countries, including the United Arab Emirates, as potential locations where human embryo editing could be performed.
Harrington claimed this was due to U.S. regulatory barriers rather than an attempt to escape oversight.
Tech Billionaires Cheer On Embryo Engineering
Sam Altman’s husband, Oliver Mulherin, reportedly guided their investment.
Mulherin describes the effort as a way to “help families avoid genetic illness.”
Brian Armstrong was even more explicit, declaring on X that he was “excited” to support Preventive.
Armstrong argues that it is “far easier to correct a genetic defect in an embryo than to treat disease later in life.”
The influx of billionaire funding mirrors a larger tech-driven push into reproductive genetics.
Startups such as Manhattan Genomics and Bootstrap Bio are already exploring research paths that would likely require trials outside the United States.
However, American regulators and bioethicists are increasingly sounding the alarm.
Illegal in the U.S.
Genetically engineering embryos intended for pregnancy remains illegal under U.S. federal law.
The FDA is barred from even reviewing applications for such trials.
Most nations worldwide have similar bans in place, specifically to prevent a repeat of the catastrophic He Jiankui incident in China, where CRISPR-edited twins were born in 2018.
The long-term effects on those children are still unknown.
Despite that history, the new Silicon Valley–funded wave is pushing boundaries again.
Experts Warn of Eugenics
Fyodor Urnov, a leading scientist at UC Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute, issued one of the starkest warnings in the Journal:
“They are either lying, delusional, or both.
“These people, armed with very poorly deployed sacks of cas,h are working on ‘baby improvement’.”
Urnov and other critics argue that commercial embryo editing will inevitably move beyond medical necessity into enhancing traits like intelligence or physical ability.
It’s the exact territory modern society vowed never to revisit.
An Unfolding Nightmare
Harrington and his advisers maintain that the technology will be used only for severe hereditary conditions and not for cosmetic or enhancement purposes.
They argue that for families facing unavoidable genetic diseases, embryo editing represents hope.
But the combination of billionaire money, fledgling regulation, and an industry openly considering offshore trials has raised the alarms of those who warn that Silicon Valley is now attempting to rewrite human biology itself.
Yet, there is no democratic mandate and enormous potential for abuse.
If this trajectory continues, the coming decade may determine whether gene-edited children become a fringe experiment… or an elite-driven reality.
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