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Genetic Blocking
July 22, 2008 |
With a hope of having a child, millions of Americans attempt in-vitro
fertilization each year. Dr. Craig Sweet is an endocrinology and infertility
specialist. He says, “What we’re doing here, we’re doing in-vitro fertilization,
obtaining the sperm and the eggs creating embryos growing the embryos in the
lab.”
But now that process is able to offer hopeful parents another type of service
which is called pre-implantation genetic testing. “We’re not curing genetic
disease, we’re just stopping its transmission so future generations don’t have
to have these issues to deal with,” says Dr. Sweet.
After several embryos are created in a lab, they’re tested to see if any cells
carry a genetic disease. “Through that process we’re able to find out which of,
let’s say, these dozen embryos are carrying the disease. We will try to transfer
the normal males or the normal females first. We’re doing this process so as to
prevent the transmission so we’re not going to transfer the affected male
embryos.”
Dr. Sweet adds that embryos that are not transferred still provide an important
role to science. “Those embryos may be able to be used for human embryonic stem
cell research or some other good use.” Approximately 37% of American women under
the age of 36 who undergo in-vitro fertilization experience a successful
pregnancy. |
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