One of them, New York’s Manhattan Genomics, closed abruptly in October shortly after announcing a team of scientific advisors, including a leading fertility doctor, a data scientist who worked for the de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences, and a scientist who pioneered “three-parent” IVF technology. Second, California-based Bootstrap Bio said it planned to cease operations at the end of 2025, as first reported by Mother Jones.
Manhattan Genomics and Bootstrap Bio had the ambition to edit DNA in human embryos with the goal of preventing serious disease in infants. This idea, known as germline editing, is highly controversial because any changes made at the embryonic level will be passed on to future generations. This differs from gene-editing treatments currently being tested on patients, which only affect the person treated.
The safety and efficacy of germline editing is also unproven. One concern is that the technology could result in unintended, potentially harmful “off-target” edits. Many researchers worry that allowing embryo editing to treat serious diseases would essentially lead to it being used for developmental purposes such as appearance or intelligence to create “designer babies”. Starting pregnancy with edited embryos is currently prohibited in the US and many other countries.
There are three known children who were gene-edited as embryos as part of a now infamous 2018 experiment conducted by Chinese scientist He Jiankui. This revelation shocked the international scientific community and a Chinese court sentenced him to three years in prison for illegal medical practices. The once-taboo prospect of gene-edited babies has recently been revived by biotech entrepreneurs, futurists, and Silicon Valley investors. But the path to a viable gene-edited baby business is clearly presenting some challenges.
“We ran out of money. We got some promising results in the lab, but I couldn’t attract enough investors to continue our operation,” Chase Denecke, CEO and co-founder of Bootstrap Bio, told WIRED via email. The company is still in existence but not actively operating, he said.
Bootstrap has other problems. In August 2025, federal authorities arrested Qichen Yuan, the company’s chief science officer at the time, and charged him with attempted sex trafficking of a child, Mother Jones reported. Yuan is now set to appear in federal court in Boston. Yuan’s lawyer declined to comment when contacted via email.
Denecke told WIRED that he was not aware of the allegations until after the company had “ceased active operations.” According to Denecke, Yuan worked as a contractor for Bootstrap Bio in 2024 and 2025, until the company was shut down. “If we had known, we would have let him go sooner,” Denecke said over email.
There was early interest from investors in Bootstrap Bio. For example, in a 2024 LinkedIn post announcing the startup’s formation, Denecke mentioned that a venture capitalist took him to Honduras.
Manhattan Genomics, which also went by the Manhattan Project, planned to pursue human embryo editing for disease prevention. In a since-deleted X post from March, co-founder Kathy Tye said the startup closed due to “co-founder conflict.” At the same time, he publicly announced the formation of a new company, Origin Genomics, to pursue germline gene modification.
Ariona Hisoli, co-founder of Manhattan Genomics, told WIRED that she and Ty parted ways due to “fundamental disagreements arising from my co-founder’s co-existence of a Cayman-based entity with the same name with different governance, and which confused Manhattan Genomics’ open and transparent mission.”
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