A California-based fertility company is offering prospective parents a range of celebrity 'look-a-like' sperm donors. Cryobank, which is also planning to offer services in New York, allows customers to search through a database according to characteristics such as ethinicity and eye colour without revealing donors' photographs. In addition, the company has now added features that resemble celebrities such as David Beckham and David Blaine.

Cryobank's introduction on its website reads: ‘Have you ever wondered if your favorite donor looks like anyone famous? You know how tall he is and his hair and eye color, but wouldn't it be great to have an idea of what he really LOOKS like? Now you can find out with a click of your mouse!'

Scott Browne, a spokesman for Cryobank said that 'the intention is not to suggest the child will look like one of the celebrities. It's just to personalise the donor. I think in their heads they know the medical history is most important, but ultimately we're all interested in what someone looks like. It's what we do when we're dating or meet someone. I didn't ask my wife her medical history before I decided to marry her.'

Potential sperm donors are put through a rigorous screening process delving into their health and medical history before finding out which celebrity they most closely resemble. Browne says the process of deciding which donor resembles which celebrity is not easy: 'There's a lot that goes into it. It's not just sitting in a room deciding who looks like Ben Affleck, what sounded really easy got complicated when we realised that people see people in completely different ways,' he said. He added: 'So we're very concerned about misleading clients. One rule we made was that a donor never gets just one celeb. And one of our representatives can always get on the phone and explain.'

The company's New York Park Avenue branch will not be open for a few months but from this week prospective parents can search the database online for celebrity look-a-like sperm.

Reproduced from BioNews with permission, a web- and email-based source of news, information and comment on assisted reproduction and human genetics, published by Progress Educational Trust.