THE children of the future may be conceived and spend their first few days of
development on a computer-controlled chip.
In a move recalling Aldous Huxley’s famous production lines for making babies
in Brave New World, researchers in the US are building a “chip” that
can automatically carry out all the steps involved in IVF, from fertilising eggs
to preparing embryos for implantation. Ultimately, such devices—which
amount to artificial reproductive tracts—may even be able to sort and test
embryos for genetic flaws.
So far researchers David Beebe and Matthew Wheeler have built prototypes that
can carry out the…
