                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 23, 1995                   TAG: 9502230095
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Short

BIRTH INSTITUTE TO SCREEN FOR DISORDER

The Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine will begin clinical trials this year to screen embryos for Down syndrome before implanting them in a woman's uterus, says institute President Gary D. Hodgen.

The procedure will allow couples to select babies who are free of the genetic disorder.

The institute last year used a similar procedure to screen for the fatal genetic disorder Tay-Sachs.

Down syndrome, which causes mental retardation and physical defects, is far more common than Tay-Sachs - about one in every 750 children born in the United States, compared with one in 400,000 for Tay-Sachs.

Hodgen said the screening would be used in cases in which a couple is already pursuing in vitro, or test-tube, conception to help overcome fertility problems. But the procedure also could be available to older women, who have a dramatically higher risk of giving birth to children with the syndrome.

Here's how this the genetic screening works:

The woman takes medication to help stimulate ovulation. Eggs are removed from her ovaries and inseminated in a petri dish.

Genetic material is removed from the embryos' cells and are checked for the chromosome that causes Down syndrome.

Normal embryos then are implanted in the woman's uterus.

by CNB