Designer Babies

Mid-1990s

 

 

Embryologists Jacques Cohen pioneered a promising new technique for helping infertile women have children.  His technique, known as cytoplasm transfer ,was intended to "rescue" the eggs of infertile women who had undergone repeated, unsucsessful attempts at in vitro fertilization, or IVP.

 

 

1997

 The first baby conceived through cytoplasm transfer was born.  The press instantly hailed Cohen's technique as yet another thecnological miracle.  But four years later, the real story has proven somewhat more complicated.

 

2000

Doctors used the embryo of Adam Nash and his umbilical cord to save his older sister from a blood disease that she had.

 

2003

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority  clinics in Britain to create babies to help another person.  The first UK designer baby was born in 2003 to provide stem cells for a sibling.  This year a woman in Britain gave birth to a baby girl designed to be free of breast cancer.  The father's grandmother, mother, sister and cousin were all diagnosed with breast cancer so they turned to pioneering treatment where the mother's embryos were screened.  The embryos that did not contain BRCA1 gene were planted into the womb.  The child who would have had an 80% chance of having this disease is now cancer free.  Because of this technique, hope has been restored to couples who are afraid of passing a disease down to their offspring.