Little Ellie Born Without Genetic Disease Thanks to Pioneering ‘Designer Baby’ Technique
7th March 2015
BABY Ellie Cross was born free of a genetic disease which could have claimed her life, thanks to a pioneering technique.
Her mother, Jess Fenwick, had a 50 per cent chance of passing on neurofibromatosis.
The condition causes tumours to grow along nerve endings.
Over time these can become cancerous and threaten the life of sufferers.
To prevent her much-wanted baby inheriting the disease, Jess underwent embryo selection, or pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).
Doctors found an embryo free from the faulty gene, fertilised it with sperm from Jess’s partner Paul Cross, 39, then implanted it in her womb.