Reproductive Technologies

1
Reproductive Technologies
2
Intro to Reproductive Technologies

• For most of a pregnancy you wonder about who your
  baby will look like, who will it behave like.
• As birth approaches concerns about general health
  and well-being take over.

3
Intro to Reproductive Technologies

• Not long ago details about the health of a
  developing baby could not be known.
• Today information can be gathered from the
  developing fetus, it can even be predicted before
  the baby is conceived.

4
Genetic Counseling

• For couples who have a family history of a
  genetic disorder or have a child with a heritable
  disorder
• Genetic Counselors gather information, blood work
  and construct a family pedigree
• They predict the likelihood of subsequent
  children having the disorder.

5
Pre-implantation Diagnosis

• Parents concerned about a heritable disorder,
  such as cystic fibrosis and Duchenne MD, can use
  in vitro fertilization to conceive a child (their
  sperm and eggs are brought together in a dish).
• As the embryo starts to divide, a karyotype is
  produced from one of its cells to determine
  whether the disorder has been inherited.
• The doctors can then choose which embryo(s) to
  transfer back to the mothers uterus.

6
Prenatal Diagnosis

• If a woman has already conceived there are
  several tests that can diagnose inheritable
  disorders.

7
Prenatal Diagnosis

• Amniocentesis removing a sample of fetal cells
  from the fluid surrounding the baby and then
  performing a karyotype analysis.
• Ultrasound is used to locate the baby and a long,
  thin needle is used to withdraw the fluid.
• Risk to baby, cannot be done until after 14th
  week of pregnancy and takes some time to get
  results.

8
Prenatal Diagnosis

• Chorionic Villi Sampling (CVS)
• The chorion is a special tissue that surrounds
  the amniotic sac and the baby, it is made of
  fetal cells.
• a sample can be removed for karyotyping around
  the 9th week of pregnancy

9
Treatment

• Genetic Screening and Prevention
• Many genetic disorders can be detected at birth
  through blood tests if they havent already been
  diagnosed.
• Some disorders can be improved upon with diet, or
  surgery, if detected early enough.

10

• Sometimes the only treatment is to minimize the
  effects of the disorder ex. People with
  albinism lack protection from the sunlight, there
  is no medical treatment, they have to limit
  exposure to sun.

11
Treatment

• Gene therapy
• Normal or modified genes are transferred into the
  defective cells of individuals.
• Usually transferred by a harmless virus, which
  will perform the lytic cycle, and inject the good
  gene into the defective cells.
• Hope is that the defective cells will begin
  functioning normally and the symptoms of the
  disorder will be reversed.

12
Human Genome Project

• Human Genome Project was a 13-year effort
  coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and
  the National Institutes of Health. Among the main
  goals were to
• Identify all the approximately 20,000-25,000
  genes in human DNA,
• determine the sequences of the 3 billion chemical
  base pairs that make up human DNA
• http//genomics.energy.gov/

13
Genome Research

• Scientists are also mapping the genome of other
  living organisms.
• Some current and potential applications of genome
  research include
• Molecular medicine improved diagnoses /drugs
• Energy sources and environmental applications -
  biofuels
• Risk assessment carcinogens/mutations
• Bioarchaeology, anthropology, evolution, and
  human migration
• DNA forensics (identification)
• Agriculture, livestock breeding, and
  bioprocessing