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Show New Progress in Ge::ziic Research Is Reported by thi March of Dimes i Pi j' ' ' ' " u ' 1 St , ' f n ' - 6-,y ,lvp 1 ! DOCTORS AND NURSES with their small patients-and the patients' genetic charts showing chroma- -some abnormalities at the March of Dimes-sponsored Birth Defects Center at the University' of 1 Tennessee Memorial Research Center and Hospital, Knoxville. Tenn. . , March of Dimes research scientists during 1967 reported re-ported progress in pinpointing pinpoint-ing causes of two major classes of birth defects. New blood-testing techniques may show the extent and nature na-ture of birth defects in the children of women who contracted con-tracted seemingly mild infections infec-tions during pregnancy. Progress is also being made in testing human cells to determine de-termine carriers of certain rare defects and to find out how those defects are passed from generation to generation. Dr. Charles A. Alford is testing babies born at the Uni-. Uni-. versity of Alabama Medical Center by a new technique of determining the level of a blood protein called IgM. A high level indicates that the baby has been infected in the womb. Dr. B. H. Kean and associates will launch a similar program of testing obstetric cases admitted to the lying-in branch of the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center for laboratory evidence of tox oplasmosis, a parasite that often ! causes brain defects and blindness blind-ness in the baby. The infection is usually completely symptomless symp-tomless in adults. "At the University of Rochester, Roch-ester, N. Y., Dr. James B. Han-shaw Han-shaw is testing babies born at the Strong Memorial Hospital for cytomegalovirus, another infection harmless to the mother but dangerous to her unborn offspring in causing damage to the brain, eye, liver, and other organs. On the hereditary side of the birth defects problem the major development of 1967 is medicine's rapidly increasing ability to spot the "normal" carriers of genes for certain inherited diseases. New biological test techniques tech-niques make it possible to recognize rec-ognize the gene carriers of 67 out of 99 known "inborn errors of metabolism," which are inherited in-herited enzyme deficiencies often responsible for severe deformity or mental retardation retarda-tion in children, Dr. David Yi-Yung Yi-Yung Hsia recently told a March of Dimes-sponsored Genetics Institute . meeting. . Study of disease carriers pro-vides pro-vides scientists with sharper tools for understanding the subtleties of inherited deficiencies, deficien-cies, said. Dr. Hsia. Detecting disease carriers also provides geneticists with ' useful inf or- . mation on how genetic traits are inherited, he added. Chemical Chem-ical differences among carriers of the same disease, for exam- i ' pie, may reveal that more .than one gene is involved in the disease process. Identification of carriers simplifies calcula- -tion of how frequently the disease-producing gene occurs among different populations. All this information, says Dr. . Hsia, takes much of the guesswork guess-work out of genetic counseling. ' A simple test performed on persons of high-risk populations popula-tions either relatives of a per- son with a heritable disease : or. members, of population groups having a high disease incidence may tell whether ' they do, in fact, carry the disease dis-ease and, if so what the likelihood likeli-hood is of transmitting it to their children. JESS |