British researchers revealed a new embryo screening advance -- similar to DNA fingerprinting -- on Monday that could help more couples avoid the risk of having children with severe genetic disorders.
The new technique was developed by the Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, which is made up by two of London's oldest teaching hospitals.
Experts hope it will improve the reliability -- and success rate -- of such screenings for families watching out for diseases like cystic fibrosis, sickle cell and spinal muscular atrophy.
The standard screening test, known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis or PGD, helps identify specific mutations in genes. The new work, which is called Preimplantation Genetic Haplotyping, is essentially a new way of analyzing the data to zero in on chromosomal "markers" in DNA.
"Because the markers act like a DNA fingerprint, it gives us a more accurate diagnosis," Alison Lashwood, a consultant nurse in genetics and PGD who worked with the team who developed the new technique.
Such "fingerprinting" enables the scientists to distinguish between the chromosomes carrying the affected genes and those which do not. The work is applied to a relatively small percentage of the population who are genetically predisposed to such diseases, Lashwood said.
The research work, which was published in peer-reviewed Reproductive BioMedicine Online, was presented in Prague, Czech Republic, during the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology's 22nd annual conference.
Though most couples are fertile, they would use IVF -- treatments such as those used by infertile couples, the trust said in a statement. A single cell is extracted from each embryo -- which at the time is only eight cells in all -- and analyzed to compare against those embryos which carry the genetic disorder and those that do not.
The unaffected embryos are then transferred in hopes of a pregnancy without the genetic condition, the trust said.
It said five pregnancies had been achieved so far.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the