Genetic miracle

First baby born after scientists screened out crippling disorder

THE first baby has been born in Europe as the result of a new IVF procedure that checks embryos for devastating genetic disorders.

Lucas Neagu was at high risk of inheriting a rare form of muscular dystrophy, making walking and everyday tasks difficult.

But a ground-breaking technique, described as a ‘‘genetic miracle’’ and pioneered by Centre for Reproductive and Genetic Health doctors in London has allowed Lucas to be born fit and healthy.

He is the first baby in Europe, and potentially the world, to be born using the technique, known as karyomapping. A US genetics laboratory also reported success in the procedure in January, but the identity of the child and the precise date of the birth has not been released.

Previous embryo testing procedures, known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis, have long been recognised as expensive and time-consuming and require the tailoring of a specific test for each parent or disorder.

Conventional methods require months of laboratory work – while karyomapping takes less than a fortnight and is able to detect more than 200 disorders. Lucas’ mother Carmen, 26, who works in recruitment, inherited CharcotMarie-Tooth disease from her father, who suffered with the illness all his life.

It causes weakness and wasting of the muscles below the knees and often those of the hands and can lead to loss of feeling in the fingers and legs.

Although Carmen Neagu only has mild symptoms, she was concerned that her children would inherit the disease and specialists warned that there was a 50 per cent chance she would pass on the illness.

‘‘My dad had severe symptoms and it really got him down. He was unable to walk unaided and he always felt people were looking at him and staring.

‘‘I was told I could try and get pregnant and have a test at 16 weeks, but that really wasn’t an option for me because it would have been too hard to have an abortion at that stage.’’

To isolate the genes responsible for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, doctors took DNA swabs from Carmen Neagu, her mother and Lucas’s father Gabriel, 30.

They then compared the gene sequences at 300,000 different points of the chromosomes to work out which section of genetic code was defective and responsible for causing the abnormality.

The couple then underwent a normal IVF cycle but, crucially, the embryos created from the procedure were biopsied to find out which ones were free of the genetic disease. The test also checks that embryos have the right number of chromosomes, a frequent cause of miscarriage and developmental disorders, such as Down’s syndrome.

Lucas is now three months old, happy and healthy.

The procedure is available on the NHS public health system.