The CARE team has developed and introduced many new fertility treatments and technologies over the years, being one of the first in the UK to be licensed to perform specialist tests, such as Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) and HLA Tissue Typing. With the opening of a state of the art PGD laboratory, in conjunction with the world renowned Genesis Genetics Institute at our new unit in Nottingham, we are now able to offer the most advanced technology available to patients. This collaboration will give couples access to the expertise and skill of both the Genesis Genetics Institute and the CARE fertility team.
Genesis Genetics undertakes more than half the PGD carried out worldwide and their molecular genetics labs service over 250 IVF centres, including every major university in the United States and Canada. Professor Mark Hughes, President of Genesis Genetics, is the pioneer of the PGD programme. With the establishment of this lab within the CARE Nottingham unit, the most extensive range of diseases can now be tested in the UK - Genesis Genetics tests for around 200 conditions, more than any other facility worldwide. Within a period of as little as 5-6 weeks a test can be designed for couples with inherited diseases and unique gene mutations.
What is PGD?
Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) is a technology which allows genetic testing of an embryo prior to implantation and before pregnancy occurs. It is used in conjunction with IVF and allows only those embryos diagnosed as being free of a specific genetic disorder to be transferred into a woman for pregnancy.
Who might benefit from PGD?
Some couples are at risk of transmitting an inherited disease to their children - such as Cystic Fibrosis, Thalassaemia and Fanconi Anaemia. Until PGD, if couples wished to avoid having a child with a life threatening or severely debilitating disorder, their options were not to have a pregnancy, or to become pregnant and undergo pre-natal diagnosis consisting of either amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling (CVS) at between 11 - 16 weeks of pregnancy. If the foetus was affected then the couple had the difficult decision of whether or not to continue with the pregnancy. PGD is performed before implantation making it the earliest form of prenatal diagnosis before the couple embark on a pregnancy.
Some examples of the diseases we can test for;
| Agammaglobulinemia-Bruton Alport Syndrome Beta Thalassaemia Bloom Syndrome Canavan Disease Charcot Marie Tooth Neuropathy Cong. Erythropoietic Porphyria Cystic Fibrosis Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Dystrophy Myotonica Emery-Dreifuss Muscular Dystrophy Fanconi Anaemia Fragile X Friedreich Ataxia Gaucher Disease Haemophilia HLA Typing Hunter Syndrome Huntington Disease |
Hurler Syndrome Lesch-Nyhan Li-Fraumeni Syndrome Marfan Syndrome Menkes Neurofibromatosis Niemann-Pick Type C Osteogenesis Imperfecta Polycystic Kidney Disease Retinoblastoma 1 Sanfilippo A Sickle Cell Spinal Muscular Atrophy Tay-Sachs Trecher Collins Tuberous Sclerosis Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome |
This list is not exhaustive as Genesis Genetics is able to test for an extensive range of conditions. If you come to us, we will do everything we can to help you build a healthy family.
