Ryan Knudson

Just before Emily and her colleagues were about to reach out to the company directly, it came out of stealth mode and made a big announcement.

And what did they say?

So in other words, they're saying we want to use this technology to prevent diseases, right?

How did the company respond when you and your colleagues put the question to them about what you had found, which is that they were talking to a couple, that they were looking at the UAE, and they were actually taking these active steps?

Hmm.

So the company says that we're still in the research phase.

We're not actually, like, taking active steps toward doing it.

After Emily reached out to Armstrong and his representatives for comment, he posted on X that he was excited to be an investor in preventive.

More than 300 million people globally live with genetic disease, he wrote.

It is far easier to correct a small number of cells before disease progression occurs.

In a statement, Sam Altman's husband, Oliver Mulherin, said that he was the one driving the couple's investment in Preventive because, quote, "...I care about research that helps people avoid disease."

When Emily and her colleagues published their story, it resurfaced fears about safety and eugenics.

Scientists and bioethicists reiterated their concerns that embryo editing is unsafe and accused Preventive of working on quote-unquote baby improvement.

But that pushback hasn't slowed Preventive down.

It's far too early to tell whether preventive or other future projects like it will succeed.

But they may not need to.

Because at the same time that tech titans like Brian Armstrong are investing in embryo editing, they're also investing in another technology, one that's arguably a lot easier to pull off and one that could achieve a lot of the same aims.

That technology is embryo screening.

They were screening them, testing them for disease risks and other traits, and then using that information to decide which embryo to implant.

That future is already here for some parents.