Mark Hughes, MD, PhD, director of Genesis Genetics Institute in Detroit and director of the Applied Genomics Technology Center of Michigan, spoke at the opening session of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ (ACOG) 56th Annual Clinical Meeting.
Here are some of his remarks:
“The rapid growth and clinical adaptation of genetically based information and technology are fundamentally changing the practice of medicine, especially for ob-gyns.
Knowing the roadmap of the human genome gives us powerful tools to help our patients in ways we might barely have imagined just a few years ago.
In ob-gyn this information presents especially complex practice dilemmas.
Just because we technically can do something doesn’t mean we should.
Through the ages, technology has been the fuel that drives the engine of science, and science is the vehicle that propels the progress of medicine, and medicine routinely drives us into bioethical corners.
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis was invented 18 years ago, and it’s come a mighty long way.
It is now possible to detect quite complex problems in the smallest unit of life (one cell), in the smallest unit of inheritance (one gene), for the smallest part of a gene (one DNA nucleotide), out of 3.3 billion letters that comprise the human genome.
Even in 100 years of medical advances, diagnostics will not be smaller than examining–overnight–one molecule. The technology itself will surely evolve with time, but we are now at the limits of the biology that can produce severe pathology in our patients.
Their anxiety is significant. Do they want diagnostic testing such as chorionic villus sampling (CVS) or amniocentesis, and what will they do with the information after they have it?
By testing a fertilized egg prior to implantation, modern science can now eliminate this risk and this stressful time for couples.
Who decides what’s ethical and what isn’t? It varies from one country to the other.”
