Australians create their first 'designer baby' 11/3/04. By the Public Health Genetics Unit An Australian woman is pregnant with the country's first 'designer baby' and due to deliver in August 2004.

The parents, from Tasmania, have travelled to Sydney in New South Wales, a state where pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is legal, to have the procedure to create a sibling who would be an exact tissue match for their four-year-old son, BJ.

BJ has hyper IgM syndrome and is one of only 30 children in the Australia to suffer from the rare and incurable genetic disease. The disorder leaves BJ prone to infections; he currently undergoes blood transfusions to boost his immunity. BJ needs a blood marrow transplant from someone with his exact tissue type to cure the disease so his parents decided to undergo PGD.

During IVF treatment, the embryos produced are screened to choose those that are disease-free. The healthy embryos are then tissue-typed to determine those that will match the tissue-type of the child to be treated. An embryo with the matching tissue-type is then implanted in the woman's womb. PGD was successfully used in the USA, where Adam Nash was born to provide umbilical cord blood to cure his sister Molly.

There are ethical concerns about the use of PGD. The president of the Australian Medical Association, Bill Glasson, noted the fine line between the acceptability and unacceptability of the procedure. "If the intent is to create another child that is disease free and can help the sibling then it could be argued that it is ethically correct" he stated. "But if the intent is to create an embryo that is compatible with the sick child and in doing so discards a series of other embryos, then the process has to be questioned."

In the UK, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has drawn the line slightly differently. It approved an application for PGD from the Hashmi family because there would be no guarantee that another child conceived naturally would not suffer from the same disease that afflicted their son, Zain.

News: Appeal Court decides to allow Hashmi family to use PGD with tissue typing

However, the Whittaker family had to travel to the United States for PGD when their application was denied by the HFEA because the disease suffered by their child was not genetic. The HFEA's argument was that PGD had to be used only when the embryo was at risk of inheriting the disease that affected the existing child.

BJ's family is not concerned about the ethics of their decision to pursue PGD. They are happy that a new child is on the way, as they had planned to have more children, and pleased that their new child can help BJ. It is unclear whether BJ's brother will indeed 'save' his brother's life as BJ is currently responding well to the conventional treatment for Hyper IgM syndrome. If by the time of the baby's birth BJ is still doing well, the baby's umbilical cord blood will be stored.

Article courtesy of the Public Health Genetics Unit .

Image credit: Catherine Riley