For many couples looking to get pregnant, doctors may recommend that they each get tested for genetic diseases. Some expectant moms are also advised to undergo tests like an amniocentesis during their second trimester to rule out certain birth defects like Down syndrome. However, GenePeeks is a company that takes testing one step further by combining the DNA of the prospective parents to make ‘virtual babies.’
Tag: DNA
DNA Test Uncovers Clues to Past Miscarriages
DNA analysis of tissue archived from dilation and curettage (D&C) procedures after miscarriage can identify chromosomal abnormalities that might have caused the pregnancy loss, according to a study published in Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology.
Report: Utah Kidnapper Is Woman’s Father Due to Semen Switch
DNA test points at an ex-employee of a Midvale reproductive clinic — and a convicted kidnapper.
Improving IVF Is Focus at ASRM, IFFS Meeting
When it comes to oocyte retrieval for in vitro fertilization (IVF), 15 may be the sweet spot, and mitochondrial DNA may help predict which embryos will take hold and lead to pregnancies, researchers reported in Boston at the joint meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the International Federation of Fertility Societies.
Why We Need to Think Differently About Our Genomes
If—like most of us—your entire understanding of DNA and genetics can be traced back to CSI reruns, you’re probably under the impression that your genome is unique; that it defines you completely. But scientists increasingly believe that’s not that case. In fact, we need to start thinking about our genomes differently.
Double Helix Serves Double Duty
Last Wednesday, a group of researchers at the European Bioinformatics Institute reported in the journal Nature that they had managed to store digital information in synthetic DNA molecules, then recreated the original digital files without error.
The amount of data, 739 kilobytes all told, is hardly prodigious by today’s microelectronic storage standards: all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets, a scientific paper, a color digital photo of the researchers’ laboratory, a 26-second excerpt from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech and a software algorithm. Nor is this the first time digital information has been stored in DNA.
But the researchers said their new technique, which includes error-correction software, was a step toward a digital archival storage medium of immense scale. Their goal is a system that will safely store the equivalent of one million CDs in a gram of DNA for 10,000 years.
If the new technology proves workable, it will have arrived just in time. The lead author, the British molecular biologist Nick Goldman, said he had conceived the idea with a colleague, Ewan Birney, while the two sat in a pub pondering the digital fire hose of genetic information their institute is now receiving — and the likelihood that it would soon outpace even today’s chips and disk drives, whose capacity continues to double roughly every two years, as predicted by Moore’s law. Read full article.
Many Female Brains Contain Male DNA
In the first study of its kind, researchers have discovered that male DNA is commonly found in the brains of women – a finding that could hold important implications for diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.
Male DNA is likely transferred to female brains during pregnancy, according to researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. During this time, mothers and fetuses exchange and harbor genetic material and cells in a phenomenon called microchimerism. Read full article.
Should MPs sanction ‘three-parent babies’?
There are about 50 known mitochondrial diseases, which are passed on in genes coded by mitochondrial (as opposed to nuclear) DNA. They range in severity, but for most there is no cure. It is therefore understandable that scientists and affected families want research into “three-parent embryo” techniques to go ahead. But there are good reasons for caution.
To begin with, this is not about finding a cure. It is about preventing people with mitrochondrial disease being born. These new technologies, even if they work, will do nothing for the thousands of people already suffering from these diseases, or for those who will be born with it in the future. And for affected couples there are already alternative solutions, including adoption and egg donation. Apart from this, I’m left with some big questions.
Will it work? This technology uses similar “nuclear transfer” techniques to those used in “therapeutic cloning” for embryonic stem cells – which has thus far failed to deliver, and animal-human cytoplasmic hybrids (“cybrids”). The wild claims made about cybrids by the biotechnology industry, research scientists, patient-interest groups and science journalists duped parliament into licensing animal-human hybrid research in 2008. Few today will remember Gordon Brown’s empty promises of cybrids offering “a profound opportunity to save and transform millions of lives” or how this research would be “an inherently moral endeavour that can save and improve the lives of thousands and over time millions of people”. But the measure was supported in a heavily whipped vote as part of the human fertilisation and embryology bill, now the HFE Act. Yet cybrids are now a farcical footnote in history. They have not worked. Ironically, it was in that same act of parliament that provision for this new research was also made
DNA of fetus revealed through risk-free testing
Scientists have pieced together the entire DNA sequence of an 18-week-old fetus without having to use any invasive tests that could result in a miscarriage — an advance that offers a glimpse of the future of prenatal testing.
Using blood drawn from the mother and a sample of saliva from the father, the researchers were able to scan the fetus’ genome and determine whether it contained any of the myriad single-letter changes in the DNA code that can cause a genetic disorder. They could even pinpoint which mutations were inherited from Mom, which came from Dad, and which were brand-new.
If the technique is refined and the technology becomes inexpensive — as many experts anticipate — this type of prenatal testing could provide prospective parents with a simple, risk-free way to screen for a broad array of simple genetic disorders, according to the authors of a report in Thursday’s edition of Science Translational Medicine.
Stem Cell Suicide Switch
Human embryonic stem cells give a whole new meaning to the phrase “taking one for the team.” Unlike any other known human cell type, hESCs are primed to immediately throw themselves on the sword if they experience any DNA damage, according to research published online today (May 3) in Molecular Cell.