A baby free of a hereditary genetic disease that has just been born at the Vírgen del Rocío Hospital in Seville will cure the serious and rare disease of his older brother of ten years.
Thanks to a blood transplant of his umbilical cord, and being 100 percent compatible with his brother (they have the same type of blood group and the same defense system), the chances of a transplant rejection occur are minimal.
His older brother has a rare disease called Shwachman-Diamond syndrome, a severe hematological disease of genetic origin that affects several organs, and characterized by bone deformities, short stature and delayed psychomotor development. Those affected also have a high probability of presenting leukemia throughout their lives.
Over time, you will need a compatible bone marrow donation, something very difficult to get through umbilical cord banks, but not if it is from your own sister. The baby born last Wednesday has a histocompatibility profile (HLA) identical to that of her brother.
The girl has been conceived through preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), a technique that allows the selection of free embryos from the mutation of the gene that causes the disease. Making sure that the girl would be free of the disease that her brother inherited, the transplantation of the cells of her umbilical cord is the best therapeutic option to cure it.
Since the Assisted Reproduction Law was passed in 2006, they have been born four "medicine babies" in Spain, well known because his arrival in the world allows the cure of his brothers, three in Andalusia and in the same hospital.
The first drug baby, and second in the world, was Javier Mariscal who was born to cure his six-year-old brother who suffered from severe congenital anemia.
So far there is only one precedent described in the international scientific literature of this type, so if the transplant is successful it would be the second case in the world in which a patient affected by this syndrome is cured with an umbilical cord transplant from a compatible HLA brother after the application of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis.
Via | The confidential
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