Course: Making Babies in the 21st Century

Prof Anna David leads a team of scientists and clinicians at UCL that are finding new and fascinating ways to treat diseases in the unborn. One such disease is also …

In this interview, Juliet Tizzard of the HFEA explains the difference between embryo research and embryo treatment. This separation is what allows research on genome editing to develop in the …

In this brief segment, Emily Jackson highlights the fact that genome editing has the potential to revolutionise treatment of disease and that we should try to avoid the scaremongering of …

Gene therapy offers the possibility of correcting genetic errors. It is a technique that has already shown great potential. UCL is acknowledged as a leader in this exciting and dynamic …

What are the implications of the effort to engineer the human genome? Whatever they are, as Professor Bronwyn Perry states here, they are immense. It is clear that there is …

To conclude the content for Week 6, we return to Dr Simon Waddington, and asks him what he thinks is the future of gene therapy and genome editing. In answering …

When we think of bacteria, most of us probably think of the lurking menace of infection and disease. However, not all bacteria are bad. In fact, it could be that …

In this final week we will explore different ways of altering the human genome. This is a fascinating field with a huge potential to revolutionise medicine, but also carries risks …

International gestational surrogacy is a surrogacy arrangement involving a surrogate mother who lives in an overseas country. The surrogate may also be called the gestational carrier, as she is the …

Different legal frameworks are involved in cross-border surrogacy, so trying to untangle the legal obligations of each party can be tricky. For example, while U.K. permits only altruistic surrogacy, British …

Surrogacy enables people who are medically and socially infertile, including singles and same-sex couples, the opportunity to become parents and to enjoy the lifelong pleasures of parenthood. For many, this …

Is carrying someone else’s child as part of a commercial contract necessarily exploitative? Does the fact that the work of pregnancy is carried out in the gestational carrier’s body result …

Dr Pranav Pandya, Director of the Fetal Medicine Unit at UCLH and a senior clinical lecturer at UCL, explains the current fetal screening programme and how non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) …

The term prenatal testing can broadly be used to describe all tests that are performed during pregnancy with the aim to screen and diagnose for maternal and fetal conditions. However, …

Caroline carries the BRCA mutation, an unexpected inheritance from her father. Here she provides an insightful view on the implications of carrier knowledge in terms of personal health and family …