£1,500 test to detect disease in embryos

A TEST which would allow parents using IVF treatment to screen embryos for a wide range of genetic diseases could be available as early as next year.

The "genetic MoT", to be priced at £1,500, aims to help people at risk of passing on genetic defects to conceive healthy children through IVF.

It is believed to be able to detect almost any known genetic disease and involves testing a cell from a two-day-old IVF embryo using a technique called karyomapping.

Currently only two per cent of the 15,000 known genetic conditions can be detected in this way.

But the new test, developed at The Bridge Centre fertility clinic, will identify the genetic defects behind conditions such as muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease.

It could also enable scientists to screen unborn children for risks of developing heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's in later life.

Professor Alan Handyside, who developed the method, told The Times he was applying to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority for a licence for the technique.

"We are validating it, but it is going to be a revolution if it works out. It makes genetic screening much more straightforward," he said.

Theoretically, the test could reveal information about eye colour, height and weight. Similar advances in genetic testing have sparked concerns that some parents may use the technology to conceive "designer babies".

But Alan Thornhill, the scientific director of The Bridge Centre, insisted this would not happen in practice. "When you start looking for more than two or three traits, you've just got no chance of getting a match," he said. "You would need thousands of embryos, and we don't have a practical way of making thousands of embryos."