Healthy babies for disease carriers, by JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH, Jun. 5, 2004 23:10
The author describes the case of the first woman to use PGD to find a healthy baby.
“A Jerusalem woman suffering from myotonic dystrophy is due to give birth in December to a healthy baby identified as a normal ovum and two-day-old embryo by a unique but complicated polar body pre-gestational diagnosis (PGD) that weeded out those with the disease. Shaare Zedek Hospital, which is the first and only place in the country and one of the few in the world to perform the technique…”
“Although known genetic diseases in newly created embryos can be identified by removing one cell from an eight-cell blastomere mechanically or by using lasers, the error rate can be relatively high and damage could be done to the embryo. But testing polar bodies, which are microscopic and unnecessary cells on the unfertilized and fertilized egg that will in any case degenerate, has been found to be much more accurate.”
We used both… biopsy and polar bodies..
“It has done what Harvard has not yet managed to do. The technique can be used to detect any genetic mutation, either a disease caused by one molecularly analyzable gene or several.”
I think Harvard does manage this..
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