Australian doctors create designer baby to save sick brother

[Faye]

Australian doctors create designer baby to save sick brother
Mar. 8th, 2004


SYDNEY (AFP) - Doctors here have made Australian history by creating a "designer baby" to treat his brother for a life-threatening genetic illness.

Scientists at the Sydney IVF clinic helped the parents conceive a brother who will be an exact tissue match for the four-year-old, identified only as BJ, Sydney's Daily Telegraph said.

They will then use stem cells from the discarded umbilical cord for a transplant to cure BJ from rare Hyper IgM syndrome. None of his relatives were able to provide the matching bone marrow the boy needed.


The mother, identified only as Leanne, from Australia's island state of Tasmania, is now pregnant with a healthy baby boy thanks to sophisticated IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) techniques.


Doctors also developed a test to screen potential embryos to avoid Hyper IgM syndrome.

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