Gene screening used in IVF for healthy baby
(sz) Taiwanese researchers have successfully applied gene screening techniques to the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process and helped a couple carrying pathogenic genes of thalassemia to have a healthy baby girl last month, medical sources reported yesterday.
Researchers from National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) said the girl’s birth could also bring some hope to her seriously ill older brother, who was born two years ago and diagnosed at birth as having serious thalassemia or Mediterranean anemia.
Her umbilical cord blood, collected and preserved at delivery, contains the genes that can be used to treat her brother, with the aim of at least alleviating his symptoms even if a cure cannot be effected, they claimed.
Chen Su-yuen, a physician at NTUH’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said both of the couple carry the thalassemia gene but neither have shown symptoms. However, the genes were passed onto the older boy and became dominant.
Chen said the couple went to his hospital for assistance with gene-screened IVF, in the hope that they could have a healthy baby and that the newborn’s umbilical stem cells could save the older child. more…
From: »The China Post«