DNA-based dating dubbed ‘eugenics’

It’s not the kind of question that comes up on a first date, or the sixth or seventh, or possibly ever – whether you and your partner share the same recessive gene for an incredibly rare and severe genetic disease that could be passed down to future offspring.

But if Harvard University geneticist George Church could have his way, no-one would ever have to worry about that, not before conceiving a baby or afterwards.

Church, who is known for his research in gene editing at his Harvard Medical School laboratory, is now entering the online dating market. His idea: to include serious genetic disease as part of the criteria on a dating app – by asking users to submit their DNA for whole genome sequencing.

Sound weird? Plenty thought Church revealed that he is developing the genetic matchmaking tool, which could be embedded in any existing dating app.

The point of the DNA tool, he says, is to prevent two carriers of the same gene for a rare genetic disease from meeting, by making sure they can’t view each other’s dating profiles. That way, on the off chance that two people meet on the app, fall in love and have children, they’ll know that the baby wouldn’t be at risk of having a hereditary disease.

Church calls the app digiD8. And so far, it has freaked out a lot of people.

The word ‘‘eugenics’’ screamed across headlines this week. Vice called it a ‘‘horrifying thing that shouldn’t exist’’. Some advocates were worried that Church was trying to wipe out genetic diversity and people with disabilities altogether.

Church has stressed his strong opposition to eugenics while insisting that his lab values genetic diversity. He says the app would only address a subset of the most severe genetic diseases, such as TaySachs or cystic fibrosis.

‘‘There are a lot of diseases which are not so serious which may be beneficial to society in providing diversity – for example, brain diversity. We wouldn’t want to lose that,’’ Church said. ‘‘But if [a baby] has some very serious genetic disease that causes a lot of pain and suffering, costs millions of dollars to treat and they still die young, that’s what we’re trying to deal with.’’ so after

Church – who this year apologised for accepting about US$500,000 from multimillionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein between 2005 and 2007 – has been saying throughout the past decade that a woolly mammoth could be brought back from extinction, or that he could reverse the ageing process in humans.

Pushing back on the eugenics comparisons, he said the foundation of his idea was in genetic counselling, which offers couples preconception or prenatal genetic testing to check whether their baby could be at risk of inheriting a disease.

A digiD8 user would submit a saliva sample to a lab for whole genome sequencing. The results would be encrypted and confidential, and not even the user would get to know their results or the results of others. The rest would work just like normal online dating – except users would not see a small fraction of other dating profiles.

‘‘About 5 per cent of children are born with a severe genetic disease, and so that means you’re compatible with about 95 per cent of people,’’ Church said. ‘‘We’re just adding this [tool] to all the other dating criteria.’’

Several bioethicists said they would hesitate to compare Church’s project to eugenics, which included state-sponsored forced sterilisation, mass killings or imposed breeding from the late 19th century until the 1970s.

Rather, they said digiD8 reminded them of the digital version of Dor Yeshorim, an Orthodox Jewish organisation based in New York that beat Church to the idea by a few decades. Church has cited the group as an inspiration.

The non-profit was founded in 1983 as a response to higher rates of Tay-Sachs – a fatal genetic disorder that destroys the nervous system – that were devastating certain communities, such as Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews.

Before marrying, couples can go to Dor Yeshorim for genetic testing. To avoid stigmatising people, the organisation does not tell couples anything about their genes, just whether they are compatible.

In any case, ‘‘an app seems silly to me’’, said Barbara Koenig, director of the University of California at San Francisco’s Bioethics Programme. ‘‘People don’t fall in love and marry and have children based on purely hyper-rational decisions.’’

‘‘You’re compatible with about 95 per cent of people. We’re just adding this [tool] to all the other dating criteria.’’

George Church,

Harvard University geneticist and digiD8 developer