Human Gene Bank

Globalization, falling fertility rates, and war will likely lead to a reduction in global human genetic diversity over the next few generations. We aim to create a gene bank to store the genetic material of healthy people of all races and ethnic groups, to ensure that some of the most shining examples of our species can be revived in the future. We think of this as a backup, acknowledging the fact that we highly value the wide spectrum of natural human beauty that we see today. Our initiative provides a vision for how human diversity can be maintained far into the future in a free and globalized world, and we hope that we can unite as many people as possible under this shared goal.

What motivates us

Few things move, inspire, and affect us as much as natural human beauty. Angels do walk among us, but they are incredibly rare. They are found in all human populations, and yet their appearance is almost entirely a product of their genetics. We often take it for granted that each next generation will produce as many of these angels as the last. However, some combinations of genes giving rise to a particular type of aesthetic face may become rare or disappear altogether. Humans today still possess a striking amount of genetic and phenotypic diversity. But the diversity of humans of the past was far greater than what we find today. Countless human forms have already been lost, and this trend continuing today at a greatly accelerated pace.

We are driven by a deep love for human beauty and human diversity, and we want to ensure that the full spectrum of human beauty and diversity that exists today will be preserved. We want future generations to have a complete record of who we are today, and we want to give them the means to restore any diversity that may disappear between now and then. To do that, we will collect and store biological samples from exceptional people from around the globe.

We share the conservationist instinct that drives efforts to preserve endangered animal species and subspecies; as humans, we think it is worthwhile to not only preserve our species, but to also preserve the rich diversity that is found within it. It may not seem urgent, but the future is uncertain, and the time to start preparing is now: Human civilization is going through an unprecedented transition period marked by ever accelerating technological, societal, and genetic changes. Centuries from now, the world will have reached a new equilibrium. It is impossible to predict what this new world will look like, and we can’t even be certain that humans will still have a place in it. If humanity survives the transition period, much of what defines us today will likely have radically changed. Culturally, our descendants may be as distant from us as we are from our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

We should ask ourselves today what it is that we want to preserve above all else. To most people, it is self-evident that we should preserve the pinnacles of human achievement; that we should try as hard as we can to prevent the loss of significant artistic, cultural, historical artifacts and of scientific knowledge. To us, it is equally self-evident that we should take the steps that are necessary to preserve the full range of the awe-inspiring beauty that is found today in humans across the globe.

Why human diversity is at risk

Today, there are around 7,000 actively spoken languages. 50% to 90% of those languages will likely go extinct or be critically endangered by 2100. The same forces that lead to a reduction of linguistic diversity also lead to a reduction of cultural, genetic, and phenotypic diversity. The multitude of languages and language families that exist today could only evolve in a non-globalized world; a world in which human societies were much more isolated from each other than they are today. Similarly, the genetic diversity, and the diversity in appearance found among humans today could only evolve and be maintained in a world with almost complete reproductive isolation among geographically separated groups.

Compared to biological evolution, languages evolve rapidly. The oldest languages that still exist today (Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, Sanskrit) are around 5000 years old or younger, and usually it only takes a few centuries until a language has changed so much that people from different time periods would not understand each other.

The history of present day human genetic diversity is much older than that. Africans, Asians, and Europeans split from each other around 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, briefly after the most recent human migration out of Africa, and they have remained almost completely isolated from each other since then. Some population differences have even earlier origins: the Khoisan people split from other African groups more than 100,000 years ago. Neanderthals, whose DNA lives on to a small extent in modern Europeans and Asians, have been separated from our Homo sapiens ancestors for more than 500,000 years.

Human genetic diversity today is not limited to Africans, Asians, and Europeans; it is a fractal phenomenon: groups within groups within groups. The closer one looks, the more subtle the differences become. Often the genetic differences vary along a continuum, and group labels are only used for convenience, and not because they describe cleanly separated clusters - just like the continuous color spectrum of a rainbow can be described using a small number of color words.

The most pronounced group differences among humans today trace back to events that happened tens of thousands of years ago. But even the smaller differences that are found within today’s major ancestral groups go back thousands of years ago, and they could only persist until now because until recently, populations were mostly isolated from each other.

That is not to say that our ancestor populations were completely isolated from each other! Every human living today is the end result of a long and complicated history of different groups splitting from each other and mixing with each other. But in order for any group differentiation to arise in the first place, it was necessary that some populations were isolated from each other for tens or hundreds of generations.

For most of human prehistory, the forces that increased genetic diversity and the forces that decreased genetic diversity were in balance. Global diversity decreased whenever human lineages died out or mixed with each other (or a combination of both, as in the case of Neanderthals). At the same time, global diversity slowly increased across populations, as geographical and reproductive isolation, sometimes coupled with natural selection, allowed more and more differences to accumulate.

In most of the world, the extent of separation that would be needed for global diversity to be maintained has not existed for 2,000 years or more. In earlier times, when mobility was much lower than today, and when most people lived in groups of up to 100 people, it would have been rare for someone to encounter another human who was not either close kin or at most a distant cousin, less than 5 generations apart. Neighboring tribes may have been mortal enemies, but genetically they were often what we would today consider extended family. Those times are long gone. Since then, the differences that have accumulated between countless clusters of humans are being washed out. Initially, through the mixing and merging of groups that were geographically and genetically close to each other, and recently through a combination of local and global migration.

Overall, we think that the benefits that globalization has bestowed on humanity greatly outweigh its costs. We do not think that it is desirable or practical to attempt to maintain diversity by fostering separation or isolationism. However, we now have the opportunity to preserve human diversity indefinitely if we choose to, without infringing on anyone's freedom.

Why beauty is at risk

Independently of the decline in global human diversity, we are concerned about dysgenic effects that exist within many populations today. Education and medical care have greatly improved our average intelligence, life expectancy, and possibly our attractiveness (think dental care) over the past centuries. But we are all ultimately constrained by our genetics, and our collective genetic predispositions are arguably in decline. Across most societies, highly educated women have fewer children than women with lower levels of education. In fact, a lack of education is often one of the best predictors of a woman's fertility. This inevitably leads to a decline in the genetic predisposition of traits that are associated with higher education, such as intelligence. Similar patterns exist for many other traits that we value.

Data on physical attractiveness and fertility is harder to come by, and there may not be a negative association with fertility. However, the genetic predisposition of some traits can change unfavorably even in the absence of a correlation with fertility. There are two reasons for this:

• 1. Every person carries new genetic mutations that were not found in their parents. Almost all of these new mutations are either neutral, or have negative effects on a range of different attributes (deleterious mutations). In the past, when family sizes were larger and selective pressures disfavored traits associated with deleterious mutations, a process called negative selection would keep the frequency of those mutations in check. This would ensure that traits which are susceptible to them do not deteriorate over time. In recent times, deleterious mutations are more likely to accumulate across generations, which means there are fewer people who are unaffected by them.

  2. Some traits (such as unique facial features found only in certain indigenous tribes), are the product of many generations of natural selection that favored certain combinations of genes. These traits are only passed on to the next generation if both parents carry a combination of genes that is common within that population, but rare outside of it.

Our understanding of how genes shape physical appearance is still rudimentary. Our understanding of the genetic basis of physical attractiveness is even poorer. This is in part because the multifactorial nature of attractiveness makes it difficult to study. In addition, science doesn't pay nearly as much attention to physical attractiveness as society does.

We do, however, have a good grasp on the general principles by which genetic variation leads to variation in physical appearance. And from twin studies we know that physical appearance is highly heritable (identical twins look alike). Despite this, we are not able to accurately predict physical appearance from DNA (or vice versa), and it seems likely that this will never be possible; most complex traits (traits influenced by many genes) can only be predicted from DNA with low accuracy. Because of this, no future advances in genetic engineering will allow us to recover traits that are lost today, unless we preserve full DNA sequences. In the likely event that genetic engineering will remain error-prone and expensive, we need to preserve live cells if we want to give people of the future the opportunity to bring back to life people of today via cloning or IVF.

The plan

Our goal is to create a backup for the full spectrum of human diversity that exists today. We want people of the future to not only have a passive record of life in the past, but to be able to bring back live humans who are direct descendants of humans living today.

Developments in human reproduction

We expect that reproductive technologies and societal norms around reproduction will continue to evolve at a rapid pace. As more and more children will be conceived via in-vitro fertilization (IVF), often outside of traditional family units, the demand for vetted donor samples will increase.

Over the next fifty years, a number of technologies will contribute to this development: 

• IVF, and the use of sperm donors or egg donors will be more common and accessible

• In-vitro gametogenesis may make it possible to turn somatic cells into germ line cells, which would increase the range and appeal of IVF

• Artificial wombs could advance to the point where human embryos can fully develop outside of a uterus

On a societal level, the share of children raised by single parents continues to rise. We neither condone nor condemn these developments. But we expect that it will be increasingly common for children to receive half or all of their DNA not from the parents who raise them, but from donor samples. Because of these developments, we expect that there will be high demand for the donor samples we collect, and no shortage of parents eager to raise them.

Recruitment

Details of our recruitment strategy are currently under development.

What we plan to collect

There are two types of tissues which we aim to collect and cryopreserve: Gametes (sperm and oocytes), and somatic tissue samples. We will also collect detailed phenotypic information for each sample (photos, videos, electronic health records). In addition to that, we will genotype each sample to create digital records of their DNA.

Gametes (sperm / oocytes)

Frozen sperm and egg cells are presently widely used in in-vitro fertilization. Each sperm cell and each oocyte contains only half of a person’s DNA. They can’t be used to create exact copies (clones), but they can be used to create biological offspring (embryos).

Obtaining sperm samples from men is noninvasive, and a single sample can be used to fertilize a large number of eggs.

Obtaining oocytes from women is an invasive procedure, and usually results in a small number of viable cells that can be fertilized.

Somatic tissue samples

Every somatic cell carries the full record of a person’s DNA. Somatic cells can’t be directly used to create embryos, but there are several reasons to preserve them:

1. Cloning
   Cloning requires considerable technical effort, and success rates in cats and dogs are currently only around 20%. Cloning humans is currently illegal in all jurisdictions.

2. In-vitro gametogenesis
   In-vitro gametogenesis is the artificial creation of sperm and egg cells from somatic cells. This is currently not technically possible to do in humans, but it seems likely that this technology will be developed in the next few decades. Due to the invasive nature of retrieving oocytes from women, it may be preferable to artificially create them from somatic tissue samples, once this technology has matured.

3. Information missed by DNA sequencing technologies
   While current DNA sequencing technologies allow us to capture almost all the information that is passed down across generations, a few minor details may be missed, for example due to limitations in sequencing technologies (certain types of variants may not be resolved perfectly)

Digital DNA records

While we do plan to preserve digital DNA records, our main focus is on preserving biological tissue samples. This is because the technologies for synthesizing or editing DNA at a scale and accuracy that would be necessary to create a human embryo from a digital DNA template are still in their infancy. It seems plausible that these technologies will improve over the next decades, but whether it will be economically feasible to apply them on a large scale is unclear. Nonetheless, digital DNA records will still be highly useful, for example for research purposes.

FAQ

Wouldn’t scientists warn us if loss of human diversity was a legitimate concern?

Whether the potential loss of phenotypic diversity in humans is a legitimate concern is a question of aesthetic preferences. Some people are very passionate about preserving endangered species or subspecies, while others don't care if a species they have never heard of goes extinct. We don't expect that everyone shares our concern for the preservation of human diversity. It is clear that if we extrapolate current patterns into the future, human diversity will be lost, likely faster than is commonly appreciated. Many scientists are aware of this, but there is not much to be gained from drawing attention to that fact.

Isn't diversity increasing through globalization, not decreasing?

When we talk about decreasing global diversity, we mean the differences that exist between populations. Migration between populations can simultaneously decrease diversity between populations, while increasing diversity within populations. To given an example, the arrival of Europeans on the American continent caused an increase in diversity there. At the same time, many Native Americans populations have either disappeared or mixed with Europeans, causing a reduction in global ge.

With so many people alive today, isn't it unlikely that anything will be permanently lost in the foreseeable future?

We certainly hope so!

Backups are not made because it is likely that we lose the original; they are made because we value something and we don't want to take any chances. If none of the samples in our gene bank ever got used, we would be perfectly happy. The mere existence of this gene bank would be comforting to us and to many others. At the very least, it would serve as a beacon, pointing the future to a collection of human specimen that capture all of our glory, beauty, and diversity; it would demonstrate to our descendants that we cared about it.

Why the focus on beauty? Aren’t there other traits that should be prioritized, such as athletic or artistic talent, intelligence, or character traits?

We do value all of the above qualities, and we will factor them in when we recruit participants. As our focus is on the preservation of genetic material, we place somewhat lower importance on less heritable traits. While we do value intelligence, we expect that in a future with advanced artificial intelligence, human intelligence will be considered less important compared to today. It will lose its status as a uniquely human quality, and it will be less important economically. Still, it will be one of several qualities we will consider when we recruit participants. Our initiative is based on a conviction that there is such a thing as timeless beauty, and that there are human qualities that are valued across all cultures and times.

Doesn't this kind of stuff have a pretty fraught history?

When we talk about our concern for the future of human beauty and diversity, we cannot ignore the fact that the some of the worst atrocities in history have been conducted in the name of an ideology which was based on claims of racial superiority. We strongly oppose fascism and racism in any form, as well as any restrictions on human dignity, autonomy, and reproductive freedoms. We reject any notions of racial superiority, as we see great beauty in members of all races and populations, and we are committed to preserving as much diversity as possible.

After the end of World War II, many came to believe that the only way humanity would be able to overcome racial hatred in the long run, is for all races to merge into one. In a free and globalized world, this is where things are headed naturally.

The rise of reproductive technologies allows for an alternative vision for a free and globalized world, one that is free of racism, while maintaining human diversity. As sex and relationships continue to get decoupled from reproduction, we expect that people will take more control over the genetic makeup of their children, and they will want to have as many options as possible. In the meantime, our initiative has the potential to take the wind out of the sail for racism by addressing a deeply rooted driving factor: the fear that one's own people are being replaced by foreign people. We plan to collect a set of samples that makes everyone feel like the best version of themselves is represented in it, and that it is being preserved for posterity. We hope that a shared vision of who we are as a species, and who we want to be, will eventually replace competition and conflict as the driving force of human evolution.

How is the Human Gene Bank different from a sperm bank?

There is some overlap in terms of sample collection and storage, but our goal is more in line with the goals of other gene banks. There are thousands of gene banks around the world aimed at preserving genetic diversity of plant species (seed banks), and there are many gene banks aimed at preserving diversity in endangered non-human animals. We think there should be at least one gene bank dedicated to humans.

What is the current status of the initiative?

So far, all we have is a plan. To make it a reality, we need funding and we need to connect to more people who share our vision. If you want to help us, please reach out!