Couples close to producing first "Designer Babies"
Pastor Dale Morgan
Couples close to producing first "Designer Babies"*
By Nicole Martin
Last Updated: 4:06am BST 27/04/2007
Two couples with a family history of breast cancer are hoping to become
the first people to use genetic screening to create designer babies who
are immune from inheriting the potentially fatal disease.
Helen and Matthew are hoping to use genetic screening to create babies
who are immune from inheriting potentially fatal disease
Helen and Matthew want their children to be born free of the cancer gene
If the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) accepts their
applications, embryos will be created in a laboratory and doctors will
implant those which do not carry the faulty BRCA1 gene.
Women with this gene defect will not definitely contract breast cancer
but are more likely to get it.
Pro-life groups are against such screening because it involves
destroying embryos that have a chance of growing into healthy adults.
But the couples said that they wanted to spare their children the
psychological and physical trauma of contracting a particularly
aggressive type of breast cancer. Helen, 22, from Bedford, who declined
to give her full name, said her mother, grandmother and
great-grandmother had died of breast cancer, most likely after
inheriting the BRCA1 gene.
"I have lived much of my life with cancer and death, and the fear that I
might have to face it and might pass the risk to my children," she said.
"This give us a chance to make sure that our daughters won't have the
same experience."
Her partner, Matthew, a scientist with a biomedical company, said: "I do
understand the arguments against it, that it might not develop for
30-plus years, but you have to consider that Helen has no female family
left. It seems very unfair that a child of ours should have to go
through the same thing when we have an opportunity to stop it."
An application to test for the BRCA1 gene was submitted to the HFEA on
Tuesday by Paul Serhal, from University College Hospital in London.
Currently, doctors can use the screening test - called pre-implantation
genetic diagnosis (PGD) - to identify and discard embryos which will
definitely get serious inherited childhood diseases, such as cystic
fibrosis and Huntington's disease.
Licences have also been granted for the use of the technique to check
for genes that make it almost certain that a child will be born with
FAP, a type of colon cancer, and cancer of the retina.
Last May the HFEA agreed in principle that doctors should be able to
screen embryos for genes such as BRCA1, making it likely that the
watchdog will approve the applications from the two couples.
In most cases, breast cancer occurs by chance, but in one in 20 cases it
is caused by an inherited gene fault and BRCA1 is just one of these.
In the majority of cases, it is passed on to women, who have a 50 to 85
per cent chance of developing breast cancer.
The HFEA said that any application for PGD would go to its licensing
committee, which would consider the circumstances of the individuals
concerned and the suitability and effectiveness of the genetic test
proposed to screen for the condition.
Josephine Quintavalle, director of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said:
"This is not an acceptable way forward. It is not a solution to breast
cancer and not a cure."