Designer baby companies are in turmoil

Two companies that Launched last year with plans to produce genetically modified babies, it has already been halted, due to financial problems and internal strife.

One such company, Manhattan Genomics in New York, closed abruptly shortly after announcing a team of scientific advisors in October that included a leading fertility doctor, a data scientist who worked at the de-extinction firm Colossal Biosciences, and a scientist who pioneered the “three-parent” IVF technique. Bootstrap Bio, based in California, said it would cease operations in late 2025, as first reported by Mother Jones.

Manhattan Genomics and Bootstrap Bio had ambitions to edit DNA in human embryos with the goal of preventing serious diseases in children. This idea, known as germline editing, is highly controversial because any changes made at the fetal level will be passed on to future generations. It differs from gene editing therapies currently being tested in patients, which only affect the individual being treated.

The safety and effectiveness of germline editing are also unproven. One concern is that this technology could lead to unintended, and potentially harmful, “off-target” modifications. Many researchers worry that allowing embryos to be edited to treat serious diseases will inevitably lead to them being used for enhancement purposes, such as appearance or intelligence, to produce “designer babies.” It is currently prohibited in the United States and many other countries to start a pregnancy with an altered embryo.

There are three known children whose genes were modified as embryos as part of an infamous 2018 experiment conducted by Chinese scientist He Jiankui. This revelation shocked the international scientific community, and a Chinese court sentenced He to three years in prison on charges of illegal medical practices. Once taboo, the idea of ​​creating genetically modified children has recently been revived by biotech entrepreneurs, futurists, and investors in Silicon Valley. But the path to a viable project to create newborns using gene editing appears to present some challenges.

“We ran out of money,” Chase Denke, CEO and co-founder of Bootstrap Bio, told WIRED via email. “We had some promising results in the lab, but I couldn’t get enough investors interested in us to continue our operations.” He added that the company still exists but is not actively operating.

Bootstrap had other problems. In August 2025, federal officers arrested the company’s chief scientific officer at the time, Zhichen Yuan, and charged him with attempted sex trafficking of a child, as Mother Jones reported. Yuan is now scheduled to appear in federal court in Boston. When reached by email, Yuan’s lawyer declined to comment.

Deneke told WIRED he was not aware of the charges until after the company “ceased active operations.” Yuan worked as a contractor for Bootstrap Bio in 2024 and 2025 until the company closed, according to Deneke. “We would have let him leave early if we had known,” Deneke said via email.

Bootstrap Bio has received early interest from investors. For example, in a 2024 LinkedIn post announcing the startup, Deneke mentioned that a venture capitalist had flown him to Honduras.

Manhattan Genomics, which also oversaw the Manhattan Project, planned to pursue editing human embryos to prevent disease. In a since-deleted March X post, co-founder Cathy Tai said the startup shut down due to a “conflict between the founders.” At the same time, it publicly announced the founding of a new company, Origin Genomics, to advance germline gene correction.

Manhattan Genomics co-founder Ireona Hesoli told WIRED that she and Tai parted ways due to “fundamental differences arising from the coexistence of a Cayman-based entity of the same name with separate management by the co-founder, which confounded the open and transparent mission of Manhattan Genomics.”