A question.

How far are we from (White -- caucasian) parents being able to "engineer" their offspring in terms of hair and eye pigmentation?

For e.g., we have a White couple who would like for their prospective child to have a specific phenotype: light skin, brow hair and blue eyes (I don't know...whatever). While using the genetic material of the parents in question.

Could something like this be feasable, i.e., designer babies, etc. (I mean is the technology far way into the future or just around the corner?)

For e.g., my aunt was very upset when my little cousin's eyes turned hazel (from light blue -- just like hers) -- I'm sure that if she could have decided on the matter, she would have liked for my cousin to have her eye colour. It was a big deal for her. My cousin is blond and has hazel eyes -- almost everyone else in my immediate family is blond and blue-eyed, so he kind of sticks out.

DNAPrint Genomics apparently is trying to patent a procedure that genetically determines eye color with high probability. This may be the first step to genetically engineering eye color. Of course things are not likely to be simple since eye color correlates with psychological variables.

Thank you for the info.

When you say that eye colour "correlates with psychological variables" what do you mean?

It's quite common for eye colour to change in White children.

Search for "eye color" there's a bunch of studies in the blog.

hope this doesn't sound too snarky dienekes-but f.b., contacts would go a long way wouldn't it?

If we would discuss about the possibilities of genetic engineering, I would say there are much more important things than that. (what does not have to mean that this is totally unimportant to many people)

At the moment I would just be happier if more parents would look that there childrem are absolutely desease-free from the genetical point of view.
But especially in the German-speaking countries even this is disputed.

Dienekes:

I think Razib should be banned.

Regards,

Friedrich

>> I think Razib should be banned.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I keep my own counsel on who is to be banned.

I was obviously kidding!

"MadScienceType" has a good answer:

You can do all that now, it would just be horribly expensive, not to mention the ethics of what happens to all the zygotes you don't want.

Certainly eye color, hair color and markers for various genetic diseases can all be selected for. You can do fun things with immune system markers, too. I'd be interested in finding out what genes are responsible for cancer development. I'm not sure about genes for intelligence or musical ability, though. The intelligence gene is an interesting concept, but work on it is probably not being done openly, for the obvious PC reasons.

It is possible to take a random zygote and introduce the genes you want, but it's a very iffy proposition that the genes you want will "take" and be expressed. Also, your offspring might be a chimera, in that some cells will express the desired gene(s) and some won't. Your hope there would be that the gene would be passed through gametes to the following generation, so if you want to engineer some grandkids, better start planning now!

http://forums.originaldissent.com/showthread.php?t=10260

Chris, I don't understand what you say in your post. What is disputed in German-speaking countries?

To allow testing for genetical diseases and the possible abortion at a time after the 3rd months if the parents want so.

F.e., if you do in vitro fertilization in Germany its not allowed to select specific zygots even if you can think that the child could be suffering from a serious genetical disease.

This is totally absurd to me and has no justification.
That would like to build a house with all you need for it, with all the investment, but you know the plan for the house is wrong. This house will never be stabile or be able to house people.
The logical way would be to erase the old plan and to make a new plan for the house, and to use the material and energy to build a better one.

But not to use praenatal diagnostic is like building a house after a wrong plan which will never work, and will just take the place of a better and more useful house.

Praenatal humans are nothing else than such a plan, they are no human personalities.

...the possible abortion at a time after the 3rd months if the parents want so = I meant if the foedus has a clear defect, not if the foedus has brown and not blond hair etc.

Is it possible for white parents to have a dark-skinned (olive) baby if the mothers great great grandmother was a very dark native american?

I am trying to get some information on how to determine if my partner and I would have a redheaded child. I have a basic red hair color (not bright or nearly brown) and he has light brown, blonde if he gets out in the sun... I hope that you can help. Thanks!