A startup called GenePeeks will identify recessive diseases that could show up in children of sperm-bank clients and donors.
Within the next year, women choosing a sperm donor may be able to use a genetic-analysis service that identifies those with DNA that could cause disease if combined with their own.
Sperm donors are already screened for a handful of genetic conditions, and recipients can choose between donors based on qualities such as height, athleticism, and education. A more detailed analysis of how donor DNA would combine with the recipients DNA would be the next step.
A company called GenePeeks will use DNA-scanning microarrays, which are cheaper to use than whole-genome sequencing, to examine the roughly 250,000 DNA bases in the genomes of sperm-bank clients and donors. The company will then use what's known about how DNA is mixed and divided during egg and sperm formation to compute thousands of virtual child genomes. Each of these virtual genomes will then be analyzed for disease risks. Donors that produced virtual babies that inherited a genetic disease can then be excluded.
GenePeeks is about six months away from launching its service and will soon announce its initial partner sperm bank, says CEO Anne Morriss.
Today, sperm banks screen potential donors for certain genetic conditions depending on their ethnic background, and all donors are screened for a defective copy of the cystic fibrosis gene. One damaged copy is not enough to affect the offspring (the child would be a carrier of the disease, but would not suffer from it), but if two copies are passed onone from a donor, one from the motherthen the child will have the chronic and often fatal disease.
GenePeeks will also scan for thousands of other disease risks that are caused by two defective copies of a single gene.
The inspiration for the company came from Morrisss own experience with sperm donation. Her son, Alec, was born using donor sperm, and he suffers from a genetic condition that prevents his body from converting fats to energy, which can lead to coma, seizures, and sudden death. No one in Morrisss family had ever had the condition, but she carries one defective copy and, by chance, she picked a donor who was also a carrier.
"The thing I think about every single day is essentially Alecs disease was preventable," says Morriss. So she and Princeton geneticist Lee Silver cofounded GenePeeks, which will use Silver's proprietary algorithms to compute thousands of virtual child genomes. Each of these virtual genomes can then be checked for disease risk. "We want to make sure that we reduce the number of kids that have to pay that price," says Morriss. "We are at a place as a species that we can do this."
The idea is not to find the perfect match for a sperm-bank client, but to rule out potentially risky matches. So instead of a list of 300 potential donors to choose from, a woman who uses GenePeeks's service may be choosing from a pool of 250, says Silver. "We arent telling her what to choose, but if she wants to, she can avoid certain donors," he says.
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Genetic Screening Can Uncover Risky Matches at the Sperm Bank