Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Designer Babies: Selecting embryos with reduced risk illness

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/314880

 Each year, tens of thousands of babies are born in the United States as the result of IVF (in vitro fertilization) – where several eggs are fertilized outside the mother's body and then an embryo is selected for transfer into her womb.

For a number of years now, it has been possible for prospective parents to screen their embryos for rare genetic defects such as cystic fibrosis or Tay-Sachs disease. However, new technical advances now make it possible for parents to have their embryos screened for genetic risk factors for diseases such as cancers, diabetes, heart disease, or psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia.

With this new method, genetic testing provides each embryo with a risk score – an estimate of the chances of the given embryo to develop a particular disease.

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