Prenatal Exome Screening from the Mother’s Blood
“A team of investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have developed a non-invasive genetic test that can screen the blood of pregnant individuals to survey all genes for fetal DNA sequence variants. . . . . Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), also known as prenatal-cell-free DNA-screening, allows a pregnant individual to receive a blood test that screens for very large changes in fetal chromosomes such as an extra copy of chromosome 21, known as Down syndrome (trisomy 21); the gain or loss of entire copies of other chromosomes; the presence and number of X and Y sex chromosomes (indicating the sex of the fetus), and, more recently, for a small number of variants that are relevant for some fetal conditions.” MORE
Image Credit: MedicalExpress