Baby born without cancer gene
British baby born from embryo screened for cancer genes for first time
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Monday, 12, Jan 2009 07:15
A baby has been born from an embryo screened for cancer genes in Britain for the first time.
University College London (UCL) said both mother and baby were doing "very well" but did not provide exact details of the birth.
The unnamed baby girl was screened to ensure she did not contain the BRCA 1 gene that would have given her up to an 85 per cent chance of developing breast cancer.
Her parents decided to opt for the controversial pre-implantation genetic diagnosis after her father's female relatives all succumbed to cancer.
Speaking in June the baby's mother, then 27, said: "We felt that, if there was a possibility of eliminating this for our children, then that was a route we had to go down."
On Friday, Paul Serhal, medical director of the Assisted Conception Unit at UCL, said the "spectre" of developing the genetic form of breast or ovarian cancer would never trouble the newborn girl.
"The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this disease on their daughter," he said.
"The lasting legacy is the eradication of the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these families for generations."
Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis has previously been used to free babies of inherited disorders such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington's.