Source: Guangzhou Daily, July 9, 2012, Page A12
Author: Li Heng

Why is she called a “designer baby”?

This is because her arrival was carefully “designed” by medical scientists: through test-tube baby technology the mother had 12 embryos, the ones without thalassemia genes and also matched with her sibling’s human leucocyte antigen system, i.e., hematopoietic system were selected and implanted into the mother’s womb. The newborn can become a donor of umbilical cord blood, providing hematopoietic stem cells for her sister to treat severe thalassemia.

Recently a special baby girl was born in the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. She is China’s first β- thalassemia and human leucocyte antigen (HLA) matching singleton born through preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) technology. Upon her birth she has an important mission of not only realizing her parents’ dream of many years, but also bringing hope to her sister --- a 14-year-old severe thalassemia patient.

According to the leader of this technology, Professor Zhou Canquan, chief scientist of reproductive medicine at Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of the First Affiliated Hospital of SYSU, the birth of this baby girl made history in China’s life sciences, and marked the success of "therapeutic test-tube baby technology" in China. With the help of this technology, it will no longer be an unreachable dream for thalassemia couples to have healthy babies, who will also bring hope to those in need of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation treatment.