First "designer baby" born free of breast cancer genetic risk

The first of the world’s “designer babies” have been born, and the baby girl is selected to be free of a genetic risk of breast cancer, the  Times reports.

The girl was born after embryos were screened to exclude the faulty BRCA1 gene. All the father’s female relatives had developed breast cancer caused by BRCA1. The program is run by the University College Hospital in London.

Genetic screening of fetus for serious genetic condition is part of the maternal health care and highly recommended for pregnant women over 35. However, only genetic risks of Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis and chromosomal abnormalities are tested. Women can then make the choice to continue with (or terminate) a pregnancy. Recently, genetic testing of individuals for risk of certain medical conditions such as cancer, Alzheimers and cardiovascular diseases have become more popular with the rise of companies such as Navigenics and 23andMe. However, the University College Hospital took preventive medicine to a new level with its screening of embryos (not fetuses) to select for implantation only those that have no risk of genetic diseases such as cancer. With this embryo screening procedure, also called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), parents who carry a defective gene can avoid passing it to their children. However, the Times also learned that the UCL program now offers testing even for people without family histories of the diseases.

Those who support the science of PGD (in particular, and human genetic engineering in general) say it helps improve our genome. Those who oppose it say it reinforces existing discrimination in a “neo-eugenic future”. Scitable has an indepth discourse on embryo screening and the ethics of human genetic engineering.

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