According to recent news reports, the UK's Association of British Insurers (ABI) may seek permission to use the results of predictive genetic tests for inherited breast and ovarian cancer, to set insurance premiums. Mutated versions of the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 are known to confer a high...
A new study, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, has identified new genes involved in bipolar disorder. The work may one day lead to better treatments for the disease.None of the genes discovered by researchers from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), in collaboration with...
German scientists are again calling for a change in the law to allow greater access to human embryonic stem (ES) cells, warning that Germany may lose its status as a leader in research if the rules do not change. A group of German researchers, including Oliver Brustle...
The UK's London Bridge fertility clinic has performed pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to ensure a couple have a child free from congenital fibrosis of the extraocular muscles (CFEM), a hereditary eye movement disorder. PGD involves taking a single cell from a 2-4 day old embryo and...
Researchers based at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have read the entire genetic code of the South American opossum, Monodelphis domestica. The study, published in the journal Nature, details the first marsupial genome to be sequenced. It reveals that most of the key genetic...
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Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis and 'slippery slopes'
by Dr David King
Recent news stories about the development of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) tests for familial Alzheimer's disease and congenital fibrosis of the extraocular muscles (CFEM) have raised questions about 'slippery slopes' and the limits of PGD. Although not a disabled people's organisation, Human Genetics Alert approaches these issues from a disability...