Article content

In the futuristic movie “Gattaca,” those in the ruling class are genetically engineered to be a physically perfect version of their parents. They are as thin and tall as models, with perfect cheekbones, square jaws and thick, glossy hair. Think of stars Uma Thurman and Jude Law. When the movie came out in 1997, this idea of “designer babies” was still far-fetched. DNA analysis was still in its early stages and the world was still years away from sequencing the first human genome, much less a particular gene’s function.

But in the more than 20 years that have passed, our understanding of our own DNA and how it works has exploded, and scientists have discovered a great number of genes that control our physical appearance. We now know that most blue eyes come from changes in a gene known as HERC2 that occurred during the Stone Age, that the classic Irish combination of red hair and a fair face comes from MC1R, and that thick Asian hair appears to originate from EDAR. There are at least eight genes that appear to be associated with skin color, over 20 impacting height and a number impacting weight.