The first baby born after a next-generation sequencing (NGS) screening has been welcomed into the world in the U.S., reported the Guardian.
Connor Levy was born to David Levy and Marybeth Scheidts on May 18 in Philadelphia. Connor was conceived as an in vitro fertilization (IVF) baby and received an innovative embryo screening procedure capable of reading every letter of the human genome. The procedure is meant to give mothers the best chance possible at giving birth to a healthy IVF baby.
Levy and Scheidts sent their IVF embryos to specialists at Oxford University in London to be part of a study conducted by Dr. Dagan Wells. NGS is designed to read the human genome quickly and cheaply and will also heighten a mother's chance of having a baby.
The procedure will allow doctors to read all of the DNA of IVF embryos and choose which ones to give the mother. With that being possible, doctors would be able to judge the chances of the child developing diseases such as Alzheimer's, heart disease or cancer.
Like Levy and Scheidts, it is also a more effective procedure for mothers seeking insemination.
"They just said, 'these are the great embryos. You'll have a baby,'" Levy, 41, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "That's all we cared about."
Wells, who offered the NGS procedure to the couple, said abnormal chromosomes cause about half of all miscarriages. His study and the procedure checked the couple's embryos for such abnormal chromosomes.
"Many of the embryos produced during infertility treatments have no chance of becoming a baby because they carry lethal genetic abnormalities," Dr. Dagan Wells, the lead researcher, said in a statement. "Next-generation sequencing improves our ability to detect these abnormalities and helps us identify the embryos with the best chances of producing a viable pregnancy."
The next IVF baby is expected to be due next month to a couple who underwent their NGS procedure at New York University, the Guardian reported. Scheidts, who had already tried three intrauterine insemination procedures to no avail, said this new procedure was a blessing to her.
"I think it saved us a lot of heartache," Scheidts told the Guardian. "My insurance covered me for three cycles of IVF. We might have gone through all three without the doctors picking the right embryos. I would not have a baby now."
