A Genetic Matchmaking Movie Isn't So Far-Fetched
An upcoming film, The Perfect 46, is about a fictional genomics company with a not-so-fictional idea.
What if finding “The One” meant finding the person whose genome is most compatible with your own?That’s the question raised by an upcoming movie called The Perfect 46. Writer/director Brett Ryan Bonowicz presented a near-final version of the film on Wednesday night at the Consumer Genetics Conference
in Boston. Self-driving cars and disposable electronic package trackers
set the film in an unspecified year in the future, but one that isn’t
so far away that you can’t find a VCR or bulky television set.
The story centers around a genome-analysis company, The Perfect 46,
that has developed an algorithm to determine the likelihood of
prospective parents having a child with genetic disease. The promise is
that future generations could be free of single-gene disorders like
cystic fibrosis or even complex diseases like diabetes, if only everyone
would work together to prevent these conditions in their children.
Sure, it sounds a bit like Gattaca, but unlike that 1997 film, The Perfect 46 does not feel like it’s happening in some distant era. In fact, I was struck by how unfuturistic it all seemed.
The real genetic analysis startup GenePeeks already says it can help
sperm bank clients avoid donors whose genetic material may cause disease
when combined with their own (see “Genetic Screening Can Uncover Risky Matches at the Sperm Bank”).
And for couples planning to have a baby together, Counsyl and GoodStart
Genetics can screen one or both partners to see whether they carry any
DNA variants that could cause disease if combined with a similar genetic
problem (see “Better Screening for Deadly Genetic Diseases”).
I met Bonowicz at the conference and he agreed that his
science-fiction film is not that far outside the realm of possibility.
“Once I had the idea to write the film I realized I had to make it this
year or not at all because a company is going to be doing this in four
to five years,” he says.
On a very small scale, genetic matchmaking is already happening, albeit not led by a company but by families affected by the disease and concerned medical groups.
In the last few decades, the number of children born with Tay-Sachs
disease—a neurodegenerative disorder that often takes a child’s life by
the age of five—has been reduced by 90 percent in North American Ashkenazi Jews. Bulldozing that disease depended on gene-savvy matchmakers and in utero testing.
Another difference from Gattaca is the lack of a committed
stance to whether genetic screening is a good or bad idea. The film’s
protagonist heralds his matchmaking algorithm as a way to eliminate
disease, but the film also touches on some of the fears surrounding
genetic screening in reproductive medicine: What is a genetic defect and
what is valuable human variation? Who decides what is healthy and what
is not? When is it okay to intervene? And what if the screening doesn’t
go as planned? Bonowicz says he hopes that audiences will have
conflicting opinions about the film. “I wanted to start a conversation,”
he says. “That’s the only way to push forward.”
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