Genesis Fertility Clinic Blog
searching: “pgd”
January 7, 2012
Building a Better Baby?
The cover of the Globe and Mail today featured an article on Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). The article is titled Building a Better Baby.
In my opinion the article tries to create a big concern where there is a small one.
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November 3, 2010CTV News - Starting November 8
CTV British Columbia News is airing a 5-part series by Mi Jung Lee on reproduction. Each night at 6pm from Monday to Friday they will be discussing surrogacy, PGD, IVF and other issues related to fertility.
Click here for the CTV ‘Making Babies’ News page.
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August 7, 2009Eliminating Disease
Eliminating disease… that’s a lofty goal. There are a few diseases we can potentially eliminate in families, though, using an IVF technology called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). Huntington’s Disease is an example. At an international Huntington’s Disease Research meeting this year we are presenting our experience (one of the largest in Canada) in using PGD to eliminate Huntington’s Disease from families.
PGD involves a couple with a known genetic disease going through IVF to create embryos. Embryos are made up of cells and we remove one of the embryo’s cells and test for the defective gene, e.g. that causes Huntington’s Disease. If the embryo does NOT have the gene we put it back into the women’s uterus. If she conceives from the embryo placement the child will not have that genetic disease.
You can imagine how significant this is for families who suffer with a terrible disease they they risk passing on to their children. They can undergo PGD and if they conceive remove that disease from their family.
So far PGD works only for diseases caused by a single abnormal gene. Diseases like diabetes, autism, heart disease, etc. are thought to be caused by many genes interacting with the environment so, for now, PGD can’t eliminate those diseases from families. One day I believe they will… one day.
Dr. Beth Taylor, MD, FRCSC
Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility
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June 22, 2009Picking gender
I get asked quite often if we can select a male or female embryo in IVF. In the interest of balancing sex in families or for cultural reasons there is a desire by many couples not just to get pregnant but to get pregnant with a child of a certain sex.
In Canada, since the Assisted Human Reproduction Act was passed by federal parliament in 2004 we cannot select sex, so the conversation about sex selection is generally a brief one!
In the USA most states do not have a similar law so sex selection can be done at many fertility clinics. It’s certainly very controversial but I cannot deny that couples can feel tremendous pressure to have children of a certain sex, for themselves or to please their relatives. In 2009 in Canada I would hope these pressures didn’t exist but they do. Honestly, I am happy that we cannot select sex as it takes the option away from us.
There is one situation in which we will select sex. If a couple carries a serious genetic disease that affects one sex and not another we will perform preimplantation genetic diagnosis or PGD and select the healthy sex. This is an expensive and complicated process (about $16,000!).
Selecting sex, for whatever reason, really isn’t that easy. Some clinics will try to wash away (typically) female sperm to leave the faster swimming male sperm for insemination. This works, at best, 80% of the time. The only real way to select gender with ~100% certainty is by the process of PGD – where a cell of an embryo is biopsied and then tested for it’s genetic complement: XX vs. XY. Then the embryo of the desired sex is put in to a woman’s uterus.
So, for most Canadian’s seeking fertility treatment they will have a child whose gender is a random act of nature: 50% female 50% male is about as good as we can guarantee.
Dr. Beth Taylor, MD, FRCSC
Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility