Couple to have first GM baby

[Ender]

link

The first British baby designed to be free of breast cancer is due to be born next week.

The child's parents opted for genetic screening tests in the hope of freeing their children from the disease which has blighted the lives of their relatives for generations.

Without screening, any girl they had would have been likely to develop a fast spreading, hard-to-treat form of breast cancer.

Doctors at University College Hospital, London, created embryos through IVF then screened them for the deadly gene before transferring only healthy ones into the womb. The sex of the baby is not known.

Paul Serhal, medical director of the hospital's assisted conception unit, said the pioneering treatment, which was carried out on the NHS, allowed the parents the chance of a healthy family. Many more couples could benefit from pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD.

But pro-life campaigners claim it is morally wrong to weed out imperfect babies and describe the technique, in which unhealthy embryos are left to perish, as a 'tool for search and kill'.

The mother-to-be, a 27-year-old London woman who wishes not to be identified, opted for screening after three generations of her husband's family developed an inherited form of breast cancer while still in their 20s.

Her 28-year-old husband is a carrier and those diagnosed with the disease include his mother, sister, grandmother and cousin.

She said: 'We had been through his sister being ill, so it was something we had seen first hand.

'I thought this was something I had to try because, if we had a daughter with this gene, and she was ill, I couldn't look her in the face and say I didn't try.'

Had the couple conceived naturally, any child would have a 50 per cent chance of carrying the rogue gene. And any girl with the BRCA1 gene would have an 80 per cent chance of developing a fast-spreading, hard-totreat form of breast cancer.

The gene also gives a woman a 60 per cent chance of ovarian cancer and raises a man's risk of prostate cancer.

To screen it out, doctors used IVF techniques to create a selection of embryos. When they were three days old, one cell was plucked from each and analysed for the rogue gene.

Two of the five embryos found to be free of the gene were transferred into the woman, of which one resulted in the pregnancy. Mr Serhal, who has already created babies free from inherited eye and bowel cancers, said: 'A patient doesn't enter into this procedure lightly. They had genetic counselling and a lot of soul searching before going into this treatment.'

Until recently, PGD was used only for genes which invariably cause incurable diseases when inherited – such as those behind cystic fibrosis. Two years ago, the Government's fertility watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, relaxed the rules.

Doctors can now screen for genes which, while raising the risk of illness, do not always lead to the condition. They can also look for embryos free of flaws which cause disease late in life, including a rare inherited form of Alzheimer's.

Addressing concerns that this is another step towards the creation of babies made to order by characteristics such as eye colour or hair colour, Mr Serhal said: 'This is a serious disease, not a physical characteristic. We are not screening for something banal or irrelevant.'

Last year, another couple spoke of their desire to use the technique to create a breast cancer-free baby. The couple, known only as Matthew and Helen, argued it would spare their children a devastating genetic inheritance.

Helen, 22, from Bedford, who lost her mother, maternal grandmother and great grandmother to cancer, said: 'I've lived much of my life with cancer and death, and fear that I might have to face it and might pass on the risk to my children. 'This gives us the chance to make sure our daughters won't have the same experience.'

Her husband, a biological scientist, said: 'I do understand the arguments against it, that the cancer 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.

'There is a world of difference between a disease like breast cancer and picking out blue or brown eyes.'

Josephine Quintavalle, of the campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: 'What we want is a cure for breast cancer, not to eliminate those who carry it.

'I do think that by the time this baby grows up we will have cures for breast cancer. It is one of the diseases where we are making good progress.'

Explanatory graphic at the site. For the sake of your brain don't read the comments.

[KlavoHunter]

How dare they criticize this family's attempt to free itself from an illness they've lost many loved ones to.

[Zed Snardbody]

This child is still you. Simply, the best, of you.

Progress marches on. Perhaps this will be the cure for cancer we've been looking for and other diseases, if you can't stop it or kill it, just make it not exist.

I'm just curious as it goes on where the line will be drawn.

Slippery slope I know, but something about it bothers me deep down.

[Stark]

It's pretty retarded that anyone would argue against this; I'd have kids if I could remove the damn strong likelihood they'd suffer through a terrible experience like I did. Nah, that's bad and ONE STEP CLOSER TO GENETIC SUPERMEN LOL, because I hear it's an identical process.

[Julhelm]

'What we want is a cure for breast cancer, not to eliminate those who carry it.

Doesn't the former usually lead to the latter anyway?

[Stark]

Yeah by making people resistant to it, and breeding them out, not by shooting breast cancer sufferers in the head and rolling them into a ditch the way scaremongers seem to suggest.

[folti78]

'What we want is a cure for breast cancer, not to eliminate those who carry it.

Doesn't the former usually lead to the latter anyway?

Only if you know what's the difference between inheritable and non-inheritable diseases. Which they might not know regarding her next sentence:

'I do think that by the time this baby grows up we will have cures for breast cancer. It is one of the diseases where we are making good progress.'

Sounds like they want scientists to come up with some magic pill treatment to eliminate the symptoms, but don't touch the oh-so-holy genes with the evils of science...

Regarding the article: calll me ignorant, but in my layman's understanding, the method described in the article(screening embryos for the defective genes) as much close to genetic engineering as traditional selective breeding. The "only" difference, that now they can work on embyos, instead of the more primitive "pair off individuals with prospective traits and hope for the best offsprings" method.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Regarding the article: calll me ignorant, but in my layman's understanding, the method described in the article(screening embryos for the defective genes) as much close to genetic engineering as traditional selective breeding. The "only" difference, that now they can work on embyos, instead of the more primitive "pair off individuals with prospective traits and hope for the best offsprings" method.

Aye, but down that path lies Gattica... Or maybe even Gundam SEED... I forget how that whole schism worked due to never having watched it.

In any case, its interesting to know that we've narrowed such things down to their major genetic flags. And it is a step in the right direction to screen for such things. Hell, we could potentially actually weed out all those nasty double recessive killers with enough research.

[Shroom Man 777]

Let's just hope that there aren't any unforeseen consequences with mucking about their genomes and stuff, that the only effect of their genetic modification is the elimination of breast-cancer risk and nothing else... not predicted.

[Broomstick]

They didn't modify any genes. They simply selected the embryos that lacked a defective gene.

In the old days, about the only alternative was for a couple at high risk for a genetic disease was to simply not have biological kids, or, for sex-linked disorders, aborting half the pregnancies. (While not bringing any girls to term would seem to work for BRCA1 and 2, as pointed out, it also leaves the boys vulnerable to prostate cancer. Not said is that men get breast cancer, too, even if less often, and a man carrying this mutation is also at a higher risk for breast cancer than other men).

It seems to me the screening used here is quite focused and not "engineering" at all. I just hope there's an understanding that these children still have the normal risk of breast cancer all women face. It's not iron-clad protection of any sort. All it does is move the disease risk from "near-certainty" to normal levels.

[Shroom Man 777]

The media's really good with this, eh? The embryos were really not modified at all, so how can it be 'genetically modified' or 'genetically engineered'? There wasn't even any design in it! It's just trial and error... or the process of elimination, coupled with the genetic screening of tiny embryos.

What a misleading advertisement.

*rants about recessive genes*

[folti78]

The media's really good with this, eh? The embryos were really not modified at all, so how can it be 'genetically modified' or 'genetically engineered'? There wasn't even any design in it! It's just trial and error... or the process of elimination, coupled with the genetic screening of tiny embryos.

What a misleading advertisement.

Your usual clueless media.
Scientist doing something with human genes involved? MUST be GM!!! And in the name of balanced reporting, they go ask for opinions from the clueless anti-GM, anti-science crowd.

[Zac Naloen]

It's the daily mail, panderers to scared little Middle England.

If anyone would make controversy out of this achievement, it's them.

[mr friendly guy]

This child is still you. Simply, the best, of you.

Progress marches on. Perhaps this will be the cure for cancer we've been looking for and other diseases, if you can't stop it or kill it, just make it not exist.

Not quite. BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are associated with breast and ovarian cancer, with BRCA 2 also associated with prostate cancer in men. However IIRC there are cancer running in families even without these genes, ergo there most probably are genes we don't know which are associated with various cancers.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I couldnt resist commenting...

Cancer results from genetic mutations within cell division regulation pathways. The kid will not catch anything else from this because all that was done was screen for a defective gene. Congenital conditions are not subject to the same evolutionary arms race that bacterial and viral diseases are. Look at it from a risk management perspective. There is a 50% chance of cancer, on top of everything else. So if the kid does not get cancer, she still has all the other stuff. Or you can have the baseline risk. Only having the baseline risk is the obvious best choice.

Existential questions: If your cancer ridden friends were never born you would never know them in order to care. You wouldn't miss anything and would not be there thinking "Wow am I sad Sally was never born"

Natural Selection: We have a big brain and thumbs, enabling us to solve problems of disease more efficiently and with less suffering than letting selection do the same job. Our fitness is increased by this.

short, sweet and to the point

[Kitsune]

If we could create a human immune to virtually all disease and live to say 250 without problem, I don't see the concern. Sooner or later, we will build a better human......

[Alyrium Denryle]

If we could create a human immune to virtually all disease and live to say 250 without problem, I don't see the concern. Sooner or later, we will build a better human......

Only problem is increasing population... but with higher life expectancy, birth rate drops

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Only problem is increasing population... but with higher life expectancy, birth rate drops

I sometimes wonder about that. Yeah, we have easy access to the statistics of birth rates and life expectancy...

But as far as I know, they're also closely tied to standards of living and general education levels. Especially if sexual maturity stays at the same single decade-ish time frame. Though, it would be interesting to see what an extra decade or two of childhood would have on the general population rates as well... (Though, if we keep the general category ratios the same somehow, our theoretical 250 year average lifespan human would have 50 years of childhood. )

[Kodiak]

The comments on the article bring up what seems to be a non-issue: Will these people be susceptible to a new disease? Since they aren't actually modifying the genes but only selectively breeding embryos, the offspring would have no more predisposition to a new disease than an offspring naturally born without the cancer gene, right?

[Broomstick]

Correct.

[Junghalli]

It's pretty retarded that anyone would argue against this; I'd have kids if I could remove the damn strong likelihood they'd suffer through a terrible experience like I did. Nah, that's bad and ONE STEP CLOSER TO GENETIC SUPERMEN LOL, because I hear it's an identical process.

I'd just like to express my complete agreement with this. If there's one thing that really irritates me it's the cowardly luddite morons who want to stop lifesaving and life-improving technologies because OMG TOTALLY UNJUSTIFIED SLIPPERY SLOPE TO SOMETHING BAD THAT MIGHT HAPPEN!!!

[PeZook]

And that "bad thing" is of course humans improving their own species. BAD! Elliminating eye defects, heart problems, cancer and diabetes risk groups is BAD! Genetic supermen! GATTACCA!

I'm not sure which fallacy it is, but most of these morons scream "THIS WILL LEAD TO US MAKING GENETIC SUPERMEN" as if that's automatically a bad thing, rather than a potentially bad thing if mishandled.

Fuck them. I want my children to live forever if they can.

[Junghalli]

And that "bad thing" is of course humans improving their own species. BAD! Elliminating eye defects, heart problems, cancer and diabetes risk groups is BAD! Genetic supermen! GATTACCA!

I'm not sure which fallacy it is, but most of these morons scream "THIS WILL LEAD TO US MAKING GENETIC SUPERMEN" as if that's automatically a bad thing, rather than a potentially bad thing if mishandled.

I was going to say the same thing. What exactly is so bad about genetic supermen? What's so terrible about people who are healthier, stronger, smarter, longer lived? Sure, it could be horrifically abused, but that doesn't mean it's essentially bad.

It pretty much all comes down to a combination of simple xenophobia and a belief that somehow if we start improving ourselves it must automatically lead to a Gattaca-like nightmare of a stratified caste society with genetically enhanced supermen lording it over the normals like Midaeval nobles or whites in the Jim Crow South.

Fuck them. I want my children to live forever if they can.

Hell, I hold out cautious hope that I might just be able to achieve immortality via "keep alive" approach (i.e. when I'm 60 they find a way to keep me alive until I'm 100, and when I'm 90 they find a way to keep me alive until 125, and eventually if I hang on long enough I can live to see the technology to stop and reverse aging entirely developed).

Sure, it's a long shot, but one can dream.

[Broomstick]

And that "bad thing" is of course humans improving their own species. BAD! Elliminating eye defects, heart problems, cancer and diabetes risk groups is BAD! Genetic supermen! GATTACCA!

I'm not sure which fallacy it is, but most of these morons scream "THIS WILL LEAD TO US MAKING GENETIC SUPERMEN" as if that's automatically a bad thing, rather than a potentially bad thing if mishandled.

I was going to say the same thing. What exactly is so bad about genetic supermen? What's so terrible about people who are healthier, stronger, smarter, longer lived? Sure, it could be horrifically abused, but that doesn't mean it's essentially bad.

It pretty much all comes down to a combination of simple xenophobia and a belief that somehow if we start improving ourselves it must automatically lead to a Gattaca-like nightmare of a stratified caste society with genetically enhanced supermen lording it over the normals like Midaeval nobles or whites in the Jim Crow South.

That's exactly what they fear - that the normal people will become the "handicapped" and be regulated to sub-standard existence. And why not fear it? Isn't that what happens to the handicapped, sick, poor, and elderly in the US already?

[Kamakazie Sith]

I just have to quote a comment that stood out to me. This guy is stupid beyond words. I'd put money down that he's thinking we're messing up gods plan, and that's the real reason why he's against it.

I don't agree with this at all. If they want to eliminate it from their family line then don't have children. It doesn't mean the child won't get breast cancer - just that it won't get the one which is inherited. There are other forms of the cancer which they could still get. This is all about the so called 'right' to have a healthy child - which to my mind is not a right at all. If they were so keen on eliminating this risk why didn't they adopt? I can see this leading to couples being able to select sex appearance and intelligence as well - which to my mind is a bad thing.

EDIT - I think if I ever decide to have children I'll do this, and name him Khan. (distorted face) KKKHHHAAAAANNNNNN!