New Technique Makes IVF More Accurate And Cheaper - Part I
By Cynthia Taylor
Connor Levy is testament to the next-generation DNA screening. At Two months old Connor is the first baby born using this new technique.
Connor’s Mom Marybeth Scheidts, through the next-generation DNA sequencing technique, she received a genetically viable egg that was fertilized.
This new process is very much cheaper and has proven to be as effective as genetic methods
The technique was pioneered by Dr. Dagon Wells, a medical researcher at Oxford University. Which was successfully used for Marybeth Scheidts and her husband David Levy to be blessed with Connor.
Dr. Wells together with his team used the next generation DNA sequence method of screening embryos that were taken from Connor's parents, the treatment took place at the Main Line Fertility Clinic just outside Philadelphia. Another couple also received treatment at the New York University’s fertility clinic and they still await their child's birth.
IVF was first introduced late 1970 and has been ab expensive last resort option for women who have experienced problems conceiving. The success rate for American Women in the age group of 35-37 is about 35%.
Many of the IVF embryo's that are produced use sperm as well as ova that is surgically removed, is then mixed in a laboratory, however, many of them suffer from chromosomal abnormalities which often prevents successful implantation in the uterus or if they implant they don't develop to term. These abnormalities in many cases don’t show these abnormalities under a microscope before the implantation stage of one or more than one embryos.
Despite the growing availability and costs that are getting less, the next generation sequence methods have not been applied with IVF embryos because the researchers have found that they are only able to safely remove single cells from each embryo without the risks of destroying it.
Dr Dagan Wells and his team have tackled this problem by the sequencing of the cells from multiple embryos in the same time-frame. The researchers then added short DNA tags ( like bar-codes) to the genetic material from all the embryos to ensure that they are able to connect the right results to the correct embryo. About 2% of each of each embryo's genome is sufficient to determine of it has the correct number of chromosomes but not sufficient for the analysis of specific genes.
The methods currently being used at Main Line is called comparative genomic hybridization, the cost of this is about $5,000, the method that Dr. Wells uses, which is a newer DNA sequence method that was developed with costs as a factor, could cut the price down to about $1,000. This price difference could make a big difference for possible testing for more couples.
