Two companies that founded last year with plans to create gene-edited babies, has since been shut down, citing financial problems and internal conflict.
One of them, Up-to-date York-based Manhattan Genomics, closed abruptly shortly after announcing in October the formation of a scientific advisory panel that included a prominent fertility doctor, a data analyst working for the anti-extinction company Colossal Biosciences, and a scientist who pioneered the “three-parent” in vitro fertilization technique. The second, California-based Bootstrap Bio, was the first to report that it had ceased operations in delayed 2025 reported by Mother Jones.
Manhattan Genomics and Bootstrap Bio had ambitions to edit the DNA of human embryos to prevent earnest diseases in children. The idea, known as germline editing, is highly controversial because any changes made at the embryonic level will be passed on to future generations. It differs from gene editing therapies currently being tested on patients, which only affect the person being treated.
Germline editing is also unthreatening and effective unconfirmed. One concern is that this technology may result in unintended, potentially harmful “wrong” changes. Many researchers fear that allowing embryos to be edited to treat earnest diseases will inevitably lead to them being used for enhancement purposes such as appearance or intelligence to create “designer babies.” Currently, in the USA and many other countries it is prohibited to initiate a pregnancy with an edited embryo.
Three children are known to have had their genes modified as embryos in a now infamous 2018 experiment conducted by Chinese scientist He Jiankui. This discovery shocked the international scientific community, and a Chinese court sentenced He to three years in prison for illegal medical practices. Once taboo, the prospect of gene-edited babies has recently been revived by biotech entrepreneurs, futurists and Silicon Valley investors. However, the path to a profitable gene-editing business for children clearly presents some challenges.
“We ran out of money. We had promising results in the lab, but I couldn’t attract enough investors to keep us going,” Bootstrap Bio CEO and co-founder Chase Denecke told WIRED via email. The company still exists, but is not actively operating, he added.
Bootstrap had other problems. In August 2025, federal officers arrested the company’s then-chief science officer, Qichen Yuan, and accused him of attempted child sex trafficking, Mother Jones reported. Yuan is now scheduled to appear in federal court in Boston. Contacted by email, Yuan’s lawyer declined to comment.
Denecke told WIRED that he only knew about the allegations after the company “ceased active operations.” According to Denecke, Yuan worked as a contractor for Bootstrap Bio in 2024 and 2025 until the company closed. “We would have released him earlier if we had known,” Denecke said in an email.
Bootstrap Bio has seen early investor interest. In LinkedIn post in 2024 For example, when announcing the startup, Denecke mentioned that a venture capitalist had brought it to Honduras.
Manhattan Genomics, which was also carried out by the Manhattan Project, planned to continue editing human embryos to prevent disease. In since the X post was deleted as of March, co-founder Cathy Tie said the startup was shut down due to “co-founder conflict.” At the same time publicly announced creation of a novel company, Origin Genomics, to improve germline gene correction.
Manhattan Genomics co-founder Eriona Hysolli told WIRED that she and Tie separated due to “fundamental disagreements arising from the coexistence of a Cayman Islands-based entity of the same name managed by my co-founder, which disrupted the open and transparent mission of Manhattan Genomics.”