Morning:
14°c
Gene test frees baby from killer hereditary disease
Benedict Moore-Bridger and Sophie Goodchild05.05.09
London doctors have successfully pioneered a new technique to prevent babies being born with a horrific blistering disease.
Medical teams from Guys and St Thomas' Hospital used ground-breaking gene screening techniques to ensure Emma and Lee Harrison's son James was born without epidermolysis bullosa.
The disease, which causes the skin and internal organs to blister, claimed the life of the couple's first child, Adam, who died aged nine months after enduring terrible pain. The disease is inherited recessively. Doctors said there was a one-in-17million chance of the pair meeting and having a child.
The couple, from Northumberland, were persuaded to try a form of IVF which uses a new screening technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis which tests fertilised embryos for the defective gene. Mr Harrison, 37, a sales manager, said: "PGD is a wonderful process. It gives people like Emma and me a chance to have kids when normally we wouldn't be able to."
