British woman says she conceived ‘breast cancer free’ baby
June 30th, 2008From the [UK] Times, video on MSNBC:
A woman has conceived Britain’s first baby guaranteed to be free from hereditary breast cancer.
Doctors screened out from the woman’s embryos an inherited gene that would have left the baby with a greater than 50 percent chance of developing the cancer.
The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, said her husband has a strong family history of breast cancer that was caused by the BRCA-1 gene. The couple used in vitro fertilization to create 11 embryos, then used preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to select embryos that did not have the gene. Of the 11 embryos, six carried the gene. Two embryos that were free of the gene were implanted, resulting in a pregnancy.
The couple’s doctor said the technique allows parents to avoid “the potential guilty feeling of passing on this genetic abnormality to a child.”
Related post here.
This entry was posted
on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 6:43 pm and is filed under cancer, genetics, parents, prenatal diagnosis, public attitudes.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Email This Post
Our RSS Feed