North India Statesman
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News India Live, Digital Desk: Every parent dreams that their child is healthy, intelligent and he gets the power to fight every difficulty in life. What if science can help you a little in turning this dream into reality? Medical science has now taken such a wonderful step where IVF (in vitro fertilization) Parents can get an opportunity to understand the risk of some specific genetic properties and diseases of their future child. This is not a miracle like making a ‘designer baby’, but a flight of science that hopes to give every child a better and healthy start.
What is this technique and how does it work?
It is called ‘Preymplantation Genetic Testing for Polygenic Disorder’ (PGT-P). In common language, when many embryos (Embryos) are prepared during the IVF process, this new technique conducts intensive genetic tests of those fetuses. This investigation does not just suggest whether there is a serious genetic disease in the fetus, but it also analyzes the ‘polygenic risk score’.
What is polygenic risk score?
This score estimates how much the child may be at risk of some common but serious but serious diseases (such as heart disease, diabetes, certain types of cancer, or even some mental health challenges). It helps to understand the risk of diseases caused by a combination of many genes, not just a gene related disease. In addition, this technique can also give some extent to estimate the child’s height and intelligence such as ‘polygenic’ properties.
Difference between ‘designer baby’ and ‘better start’
It is very important to understand that this technique is not like making ‘designer baby’, where you can choose the color of hair or eyes of the baby as per your choice. Rather, it gives an opportunity to choose the fetus among the existing healthy embryos, which has the lowest risk of serious diseases in future and more likely to have better physical and mental development. It gives parents a chance to give a ‘better start’ to their child, so that they can live a healthy and happy life.
Expectations and moral debate
This technique is a great hope for parents who are concerned with the history of genetic diseases, or who want to give their child a safe future. However, there is also a deep debate between moral experts and society regarding this technology. Are we tampering with nature more? Can this be a type of ‘Economic Eugenics’, where only rich can choose the qualities of their children? Answers to these questions are still being discovered.
Currently, this technique is expensive (genetic testing costs from $ 5,000 to $ 10,000, in addition to IVF expenses). It is still in its early stage, but it certainly makes a big gesture to the future of medical science, where we will not just give birth to our children, but will also be able to give them a healthy and strong future foundation.
