New non-invasive prenatal genetic screening comes out of clinical study

An article at the Baylor College of Medicine discusses the first commercial noninvasive prenatal gene screening that their genetics team developed in 2017, called PreSeek. The data that was collected during the clinical trials where its accuracy was the main focus. The PreSeek is able to detect several monogenic disorders that are not always picked up by standard prenatal screenings, which helps to provide a better, more through, at the genes of the unborn child. The results that were found during the clinical tests are showing that the non-invasive test are able to provide valuable data for a large amount of common dominant monogenic disorders. The team is currently hoping to make the tests more cost effective and to bring more awareness to the valuable role that non-invasive test have with prenatal care.

I think that tests like PreSeek have the potential to be a valuable asset to prenatal care, as they can provide more information on the genetics of the unborn child that could be life altering to both the parents and future child. Knowing what possible risks that the baby might face, or if there are any major genetic abnormalities that they might have is crucial of the doctors and parents. While current prenatal tests do provide a wealth of information about the genetic makeup of the child, tests like PreSeek help to add even more information that could not be discovered with the normal tests.