Thanks to ground-breaking research at Shanghai Ruijin Hospital, hereditary diseases may soon be detected and avoided before birth using the integrated technologies of external fertilization and genetic diagnosis.
The hospital, well-known for its achievements in medical genetics, has developed a fresh method against genetic diseases.
The method entails microscopically selecting "healthy" embryos by analyzing their genetic data and then transplanting them into the womb.
The whole process can be completed six days after artificial fertilization. The international community recognizes 14 days as an "ethically acceptable" period within which to deal with human embryos, according to the hospital.
Feng Yun, main contributor to the breakthrough and a senior genetics expert with the hospital, said the new technology can now be applied to more than a dozen common hereditary diseases like leukaemia and dementia, which are decided by certain genes.
Data on the diseases' genes has been collected by the hospital's reproduction research center. Feng said that the hospital has taken the initiative to develop the new technology after years of tests selecting and transplanting animal embryos.
Feng noted that once the technology is successfully used on human beings, tens of thousands of families threatened by hereditary diseases will be able to shrug off the risk to their descendants. The technology may also greatly improve the overall health of the population.
But she declined to reveal a timetable for widespread use of the technology.
Ruijin Hospital has been developing mature technologies for external fertilization over the past decade.
The hospital is now capable of culturing embryos in tubes for six days before transplanting them into wombs.
Within the six days, doctors can check whether the embryos contain the genes for certain diseases and select those found to be normal as "babies."
The whole process will be safe and painless for mothers, according to the hospital.
Medical experts around the world are working hard to find ways to cope with genetic illness, but most concentrate on each disease individually.
Usually doctors can only detect whether a foetus has grave physical defects after months of pregnancy, said hospital sources.
(China Daily July 19, 2002)
