Unlock the promise of safe, accessible, powerful reprogenetics. Independent nonprofit. Book on strong reprogenetics: https://xitter.cf/t.co/GBOjkvX0nB Run by @tsvibt
Berkeley, CA
Joined December 2024
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Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
Exciting talk from @PaternaBio. If they can mature sperm in the lab, men with severe infertility could have biological kids.
The same tech could let us genetically screen sperm before conception, making embryo screening far more powerful.
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
Today we launch NeuroRisk, the first embryo test for autism and schizophrenia that looks for mutations in evolutionarily important genes.
These mutations are individually rare but over 10% of people carry at least one mutation in this class.
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
🧠 Is creativity mostly just high intelligence?
A new twin study in @ICAJournal says no. There’s a large genetically independent component.
@timothycbates analyzed intelligence test scores and creativity data in three domains: business, military, politics/leadership). Key findings:
➡️Creative achievement is highly heritable (h² ≈ .56), shared environment ≈ 0
➡️Latent creativity and general intelligence are genetically independent.
➡️g explains only ~10% of the genetic variance in creative achievement
These findings support a hybrid view: g helps in many domains, but creativity has substantial unique genetic architecture. As Bates explains, "the genetic architecture of real-world creative achievement is not merely a downstream consequence of general intelligence but reflects a separate, heritable system that operates across artistic, scientific, and enterprising domains" (p. 6).
Read the full open-access paper: doi.org/10.65550/001c.162501
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
Interesting proof-of-concept for multiplex base editing in embryos.
That said, we were surprised by the lack of optimization and benchmarking. The study does not explore guide stoichiometry, delivery parameters, RNA stabilization strategies, or next-generation ABE variants designed to improve editing precision and reduce bystander activity.
We were also surprised by the comparison against Cas9 rather than against the current generation of adenine base editors.
Finally, editing outcomes in MII-stage embryos cannot always be inferred from observations in HEK293 or hESC systems, making developmental context an important variable to consider.
At Origin Genomics, we believe these questions are the real frontier. We're building experimental systems to systematically study how editor architecture, delivery, guide design, and developmental context influence editing outcomes in human embryos.
The paper demonstrates feasibility. The more interesting question is how much further efficiency and precision can be pushed with systematic optimization.
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
Hello world.
Our first press release: businesswire.com/news/home/2…
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
Reproductive Futures Summit 2025 was by far the coolest conference I’ve ever attended, highly recommend!
Register for Reproductive Frontiers Summit 2026, June 16–18, Berkeley. There will be quite a lot of information about the leading edge of advanced reproductive technologies, and lots of great conversations. Exciting times :) Very early bird until April.
reproductivefrontiers.org/
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
Reprogenetics would be great for humanity. Strong reprogenetics could be achieved soon, especially if we actually tried. Strong reprogenetics is the best intelligence amplification method. Intelligence amplification would be amazing for humanity. Change my mind :)
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
My current hypotheses about why IVF has remained so expensive:
- Most egg retrievals are done by REIs. There's ~1500 of those in the entire United States, and their supply is limited by the availiability of spots in advanced programs. REIs per capita HAS increased since IVF's introduction, but demand seems to be far above the supply of REIs (this is probably part of why they make so much money). OBGYNs can perform egg retrieval (and indeed they do), but there's strong pressure against it. SART and other professional organizations explicitly advise against it, and bar any clinic from being a SART member that isn't overseen by one.
- Most of the demand in IVF comes from women with idiosyncratic fertility issues. It's very hard to scale processes that need to be customized for every woman.
- The market isn't particularly efficient because it isn't particularly transparent: we have data on clinic quality and pricing, but no one knows where to find it (I've tried to fix this with makebabysteps.com, but we still need to formally launch)
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
How do we go from a single cell to a complex organism?
For 50 yrs experimentally meeting the nutritional demands of a growing organism has been a bottleneck in development.
For the first time, we built placental support and predictive tools to make it possible.
Watch ↓
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
Three months ago we noted that they'd been providing extremely miscalibrated adult 'physician's reports'. These reports used PRSs consisting of few SNPs with implied performance not at all consistent with validation in UKB.
The original thread is here: xitter.cf/AlexTISYoung/status/19…
At @herasight, we wanted to compare our genetic predictors (PGS) to those from @nucleusgenomics. However, in many cases, we couldn’t reconcile plausible performance of their PGSs with customer risk reports we saw — this may have misled customers about their disease risks.
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
Would you want to pick the height and IQ of your kids?
Advances in genetic testing are giving parents incredible new insights into the traits of their future children.
@Brook Silva-Braga goes inside the company that's pushing the ethical and scientific boundaries.
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
Let's talk about one of the few genuinely viable alignment solutions.
Tsvi Benson-Tilsen (@tsvibt), former MIRI researcher and founder of the Berkeley Genomics Project (@BerkeleyGenomic), is engineering smarter human babies to help us solve AI alignment.
In this interview, Tsvi says humanity's best hope is to stop AGI development and stigmatize it like gain-of-function virus research. Because we can use the longer timeline to create smarter humans, as well as making progress in other areas like life extension.
We cover Tsvi's AGI timelines, the mechanics of genomic intelligence enhancement, and how it compares to other human augmentation ideas.
Highly recommended! 👇
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
11/ The chart below shows our results, with green cells indicating neutral or beneficial pleiotropy and purple cells highlighting instances of negative (or “antagonistic”) pleiotropy:
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
3/ Some say embryo screening should be illegal because it is unpopular. But empirical studies show widespread public support for screening health traits, and moderate to high support for psychiatric and behavioral traits, including intelligence (thanks to @RemyFurrer)
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
1/ Today we launch an ambitious paper on the ethics of embryo screening. While the technology is new, our hopes and fears about our future children are as old as the Greek myths, including stories about Hera, goddess of fertility and the namesake of our company @herasight
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
I’ve been working with an IVF startup, @herasight, that has already screened hundreds of embryos. Today we come out of stealth with a paper showing that our predictors for 17 diseases — validated within-family — beat the competition, with improved performance in non-Europeans🧵
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
This project with @FachinettiLab was a lot of fun! @Institut_Curie @CNRS Great collab with our colleagues @MIT_Physics & @ESPCI_Paris. Big tribute to our colleague Maxime Dahan. @INSB_CNRS @INC_CNRS @Sorbonne_Univ_ @PSL_univ @LabexCnS @DeepLabex
science.org/doi/10.1126/scie…
🧬 Scientists @CNRS @InstitutCurie @Sorbonne_Univ_ have been able to act physically on chromosomes in living cells and discovered that they are almost liquid outside cell division phases.
A study published in @ScienceMagazine 👏
➡️institut-curie.org/actualite…
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
This meeting at Lighthaven has convinced me that both artificial wombs and gene editing of human embryos using stem cell technology are much closer than I previously thought.
I'm not involved in either area but it's great to speak to the researchers at the frontier.
Berkeley Genomics Project retweeted
I'll be there giving a talk on Nucleus Embryo!!