The first application date of 1989 in England

Genetic diagnosis preimplantation (DPI) was developed to predict the risk of transmission of a serious genetic disease, but this experimental technique raises questions on its application and the risks of selection of embryos. To detect chromosomal abnormalities, the CIO is implemented for couples with a risk of transmission of a serious genetic disease to their offspring. It concerns however that embryos "isolated from the womb", designed by fertilization in vitro. The first application date of 1989 in England. More recently introduced in France, these techniques are still largely experimental. It is to collect a few cells from an embryo a few days (in vitro) and to analyse the genome to detect mutations which you can be sure that there will be incurable diseases.

At this stage of its development, the embryo consisting of totipotent cells is not affected by this microprélèvement. This selection of the "normal" embryo (free of a serious genetic mutation) is in principle a complement of fertilization in vitro. As it applies to couples with communicable diseases, she meets a genuine therapeutic need. But with time and the relative commonality of this review, "the application social" has evolved. In some countries, the CIO is thus applied to women over thirty-eight years for which exists a high risk of anomalies, that some countries, including the France, consider ethical excesses.

According to Laurence Lepienne, doctor of biomedical ethics, the establishment of the CIO and the "life injures" introduce an upheaval in the distinction between the normal and the abnormal. "We first went to the right to not have children the right to have a child at the chosen time." After, we have reached the phase of the right to the child at all costs, and this now becomes the right to such child. "The border between the natural and the pathological becomes therefore more and more blurred with growing requests from parents for the perfect child, warns:"the distinction may do more to limit the criteria of good health or disease but to focus on other features."

Unfortunately, the Act is not (and probably cannot be) completely clear in a field where scientific knowledge and medical practices are changing constantly. "When we talk about genetic disease, the concept of gravity seems vague and subjective", said Laurence Lepienne. Could the Act mentor this technique by drawing up the list of likely to be detected serious genetic diseases "It would be dangerous because it could stigmatize individuals with and implicitly create a model," said the researcher.

Laurence Lepienne believe that embryonic stem cells are now an essential tool for basic research "they allow to understand mechanisms of cell proliferation, important for cancer or to test new drugs on a multitude of varieties celluiaires." "Research on stem cells will help understand the causes of congenital malformations, some infertility of normal development and anomalies of development in humans". Excessive optimism Many scientists believe that very much work and many years will be needed before that these solutions are becoming real medical alternatives: "these cells suggest high therapeutic potential." "Representing an unlimited source of tissues, they are a major source of supply for cell therapies".