Karyomapping to screen "all genetic disorders" in IVF babies

British researchers have developed a revolutionary test that will let prospective parents screen embryos for almost any known genetic disease.

The £1500 (Rs 125,000) test, which should be available as early as next year, will allow couples at risk of passing on gene defects to conceive healthy children using IVF treatment, The Times reports.

Unlike current tests it takes just weeks from start to finish and is suitable for couples at risk of almost any condition.

At present only 2 per cent of the known genetic conditions can be identified by current tests.

The new test involves creating embryos by IVF and removing a single cell from each when they are two days old.

The cells are then tested using a technique known as karyomapping before a healthy embryo is implanted, The Times reports.

Developed at the Bridge Centre in London, the test can check for mutations that cause serious disorders such as cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and Huntington's disease.

It can also screen for multiple genetic variations, so that scientists could screen for combinations that together confer higher risks of diabetes, heart disease or cancer.

Such applications would first have to be approved by the regulator.

The test will also reveal an embryo's future susceptibility to a host of medical conditions.

For example, parents could be told about their embryo's future risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, heart disease or breast cancer.

Professor Alan Handyside, who has pioneered the technique, will apply to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority for a licence to use it.

"We are still validating it, but it is going to be a revolution if it works out," Handyside told The Times.

"It makes genetic screening very much more straightforward."

Technically, it would be possible to use the test to select an embryo with a particular eye colour or to screen for multiple genes known to affect height or weight.

But Alan Thornhill, the scientific director of the Bridge Centre, told The Times: "When you start looking for more than two or three traits, you've just got no chance of getting a match. You'd need thousands of embryos, and we don't have a practical way of making thousands of embryos."

8 things India Inc, govt must do against Pakistan

December 10, 2008

The three-day-long terror strike on the country's financial capital was devastating in terms of its reach and impact. It has left Corporate India badly shaken and the elites numb.

It is no more about bombs being thrown at bus stations or trains getting blasted. It is no longer about only Nagpada or Govindpuri residents losing limbs and lives. Terror has now climbed up the value chain.

As the new age entrepreneur Kiran Majumdar Shaw told a Bangalore newspaper, "So far, the terrorists targeted common people. Now the society's elite, the business sector, is the target. What happened in Mumbai is a loud wake-up call for all of us to do something to protect ourselves."

Corporate India did not bat an eyelid when Mumbai train blasts took place, or when Sarojini Nagar was burning on a Diwali day, or Hyderabad was weeping two years before.

But today, every corporate captain is angry, and so are the celebrities who people Page 3 of newspapers, due largely because the attacks on the three top hotels were directly aimed at those who frequent these places, for business or pleasure (contrast this with the scant coverage of the carnage at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, for example, where commoners were involved).

All the same, the bleeding-heart liberals would be back to their routine ways after a few days. They will lament that the captured terrorist has not been given his favourite food and not allowed to watch TV or use his cell phone; they will say his human rights are violated. Just wait for the chorus.

Of course, this time it will be between Page 3 and the jholawalas (activists) and that should be an interesting match to watch, but that's another story.

In the last ten years, not a single session of any seminar sponsored by the CII or Ficci or business/general journals has focussed on terrorism. When this writer once broached the importance of talking about it, a senior business captain said it is for the government to deal with.

Many of those seminars gave importance to Musharraf and now Zardari, as if they are going to provide any solution when they are a part of the problem.

Now, at least, terrorism is being realised as a problem facing the country.

Let us summarise what the real situation is and what the corporate sector should do if we are serious in fighting terrorism on our soil.

1. Recognise and treat Pakistan as a terrorist state. The state policy of Pakistan is terrorism and their single-point programme is to destroy India. This needs to be internalised by every business baron including the owners of media.

2. Now, the elite of Pakistan are more angry, since India is growing at 7% and they are given CCC rating and stiff conditions for borrowing from the IMF.

Many an academic from that country, who I have met in global conferences, has openly lamented that nobody talks about Indo-Pak relations anymore, but only Indo-China or Indo-American, etc. They want to be equal but they are in deep abyss.

3. Pakistan is the only territory in the world where an army has a whole country under its control. This is an important issue since studies have found that a large number of corporates in Pakistan are ultimately owned by the Fauji Foundation (FF), Army Welfare Trust (AWT) Bahria Foundation (BF), Shaheen Foundation (SF) all owned by different wings of armed forces (See paper presented by Dr Ayesha Siddiqa-Agha on 'Power, Perks, Prestige And Privileges: Military's Economic Activities In Pakistan' in The International Conference on Soldiers in Business -- Military as an Economic Actor; Jakarta, October 17-19, 2000).

Hence, do not try to think of Pakistan without its army, irrespective of who rules that country temporarily and nominally. At least 70% of the market capitalisation of the Karachi stock exchange is owned by the army and related groups.

4. There are three groups in India, who are obsessed with friendship with Pakistan. One is the oldies born in that part before partition and who are nostalgic about the Lahore havelis, halwas and mujras. The second is the Bollywood and other assorted groups, who look at it as a big market. The Dawood gang has financed enough of these useful idiots. The third is the candle light holding bleeding heart liberals (BHLs) who cannot imagine India doing well without its younger brother taken care of.

All three have been proved wrong hundreds of times, but they are also opinion makers. Shun them, avoid them and ridicule them.

5. We should categorically, unambiguously, unequivocally boycott Pakistan in all aspects for a decade or more. Be it art, music, economy, commerce, or other hand-holding activities. That army-controlled state has to realise that it has done enough damage to global civilisation.

More than 100 acts/attempts of terror recorded in the world since 9/11 have had their roots in Pakistan. More than 40% of the prisoners in Guantanamo are Pakistanis.

6. We should recognise that it is our war and nobody in the world is going to wage it on our behalf. What the Americans are thinking, or what the Britishers are going to do, will not help. A determined country should have a sense of dignity and independence to fight its war.

We should stop interviewing leaders from that country who mouth the same inanities that "you have not produced any proof." The Government of India should perhaps create a museum of proof between India Gate and North Block.

I am amazed that a country of a billion is required even to furnish proof. If one-sixth of humanity says that the terrorist state of Pakistan is the root cause of global terrorism -- it is factual. Let us not fall into the trap of providing proof to the culprits.

7. We should realise that a united Pakistan is a grave threat to the existence of India. Hence, we should do everything possible to break up Pakistan into several units. This is required to be done not only for our interest, but for world peace.

8. We have made a grave blunder by suggesting in the international fora that "Pakistan is also a victim of terror." That is a grave error and it will haunt us for decades. They are perpetrators and our government is in deep illusion if it tries to distinguish between organs of power in that country thinking it is like India.

There is only one organ, namely its army (with ISI as a sub-organ) in that country, which owns and controls at least 70% of the GDP in that country.

If we want the world to treat Pakistan for what it is, then we should start practising it. Always call it the 'terrorist state of Pakistan' and never have any illusion that it is going to be any different.

If corporate India, including electronic/ print media, starts practising this, we should see results in a few years. Are the elites listening?

The author is professor of finance and control, Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, and can be contacted at vaidya@iimb.ernet.in. The views are personal and do not reflect those of his organisation

IVF teenagers more aggressive, UK research shows

Teenagers born through IVF may be more prone to aggression and conduct problems at school than other youngsters - and "softer" parenting could be to blame.

British researchers have found that while children conceived through assisted reproductive technology are “extremely well adjusted”, there was a weak trend towards behavioural problems at the age of 18.

But Australia's first test tube baby, Candice Reed, now 28, has challenged the findings, which suggest these children are slightly more likely to be suspended or expelled from school, or show signs of aggression.

The University of Cambridge study, presented at a fertility conference in Brisbane last month, compared 26 IVF children with 38 kids who were adopted and 63 who were conceived naturally.

“We found very few differences between the groups and found that the IVF adolescents were on the whole functioning extremely well and very positive about their IVF conception,” said researcher Lucy Blake from the Centre for Family Research.

“But we did have a small difference in conduct problems which is worthy of further study.”

The research, which included interviews with both parents and the child, found IVF mothers had higher levels of warmth and so-called disciplinary indulgence towards their children.

“This finding that IVF mothers were slightly more easygoing could perhaps be related to how the adolescents behaved,” Ms Blake said.

But Ms Reed, who attended the conference, said she thought any such trend would be “extremely unlikely”.

“Of course every child is different, and I can't speak for us all, but I can't imagine there's any trend towards aggression or other problems,” Ms Reed said.

And as for differences in parenting style, this too is doubtful, she says.

“I'm in a perfect position to address this as my brother was conceived naturally and there were the same usually disciplinary rules for both of us in the family house, so there was no leniency in my experience,” she said.

More than 80,000 IVF babies have been born in Australia since Candice was delivered in Melbourne on June 23, 1980.

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Girl babies likely for big IVF mums

Heavier women are more likely to have baby girls after IVF treatment, and boys are more common among lighter mums, new Australian research suggests. But Western Australian specialists behind the small study say while the data is "fascinating'' they don't advise prospective parents to change eating habits in the hope of changing their child's gender. "It's very interesting indeed to see such a clear gender trend, and we understand it might be quite alluring to couples who desperately want a girl or a boy, but we still need to look at it on a larger scale,'' said study leader Dr James Stanger, an embryologist at Pivet Medical Centre in Perth.

Dr Stanger analysed the clinic's database over the past five years to look at trends in body mass index (BMI) and baby's sex among the 800 children born. "I found that women who were very thin, with a BMI under 20, were more likely to have boys, with about six boys to every four girls,'' Dr Stanger said. "And women who were overweight, with a BMI over 30, were more likely to have girls by the same rate.'' The findings, presented at a fertility conference in Brisbane last month, showed no gender bias among women in the middle weight range.

Dr Stanger said it was possible that the additional weight had an impact on how embryos implant or the rate at which they grow in the womb. "We know that male embryos grow faster than female embryos by about half a day so it may be that male embryos are growing faster or female embryos are being slowed down and held back in the lower carbohydrate environment usually seen in thinner women,'' he said. "Or it could be something to do with the implantation, or the inactivation of the X chromosomes, but this all requires more investigation.''

He said that if the findings prove true in bigger studies then they may have implications for both IVF and natural conception.
Professor Michael Chapman, a spokesman for the Fertility Society of Australia, said gender biases had been linked to certain diets and environments, but most proved false in bigger studies. "It's certainly an interesting observation, and there might be something in it, but I certainly wouldn't be recommending that women rush out and go on a crash diet because they'd prefer a boy,'' Prof Chapman said.

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