A genetic test carried out on embryos during in vitro fertilisation has been used to prevent two carriers of sickle cell anaemia from passing the disease on to their children. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis for sickle cell disease has resulted in its fist success - the birth of healthy twin girls to...
The high level of fetal and neo-natal deaths in cloned animals may be linked to the disruption of a genetic mechanism known as 'imprinting,' according to American researchers interviewed last week for The Washington Post. Worrying rates of placental abnormalities, abnormal swelling and severe immunological deficiencies have been reported by...
The past month in Japan has seen a significant growth in the number of projects involved in genomic and other DNA research. This renewed effort comes in the wake of the government's attempts to commercialise biotechnology research and expand Japan's biotechnology market 25-fold over the next ten years. Commentators...
Doctors at a conference in Sydney, Australia, reported on a new and experimental technique that combines the genetic material of two women's eggs. Designed to give older women with poor quality eggs the chance to bear their own genetic children, the technique involves injecting the cytoplasm of a healthy donated...
The Norwegian Research Council has expressed concern over the possibility that cloning of invertebrates may be outlawed. This would put biotechnology research in Norway at a massive disadvantage. Christian Hombro, the director general of the research council, has instead proposed the implementation of a licensing system for working with transgenic...
A federal body to regulate genetic and reproductive technologies is likely to be established in Canada this autumn. The federal Health Minister, Allan Rock, will table legislation to set up a licensing authority and to prohibit the same practices that an earlier bill attempted to outlaw in 1996. The 1996...
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Comment
PGD doesn't imply that sufferers don't count
by Juliet Tizzard
This week's BioNews includes news from the United States of the first children born as a result of IVF and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for sickle cell disease. Because of PGD, the couple concerned was able to start a pregnancy knowing that it was free of the genetic fault which...