Scientists in California are reporting an advance toward rapid testing for pre-natal detection of Down syndrome and other birth defects that involve an abnormal number of chromosomes.In a study scheduled for the Oct. 1, 2007 issue of ACS’ journal, Analytical Chemistry, Stanford University bioengineering professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher Stephen R. Quake and his graduate student H. Christina Fan point out that most existing pre-natal tests depend on a technique termed karyotyping. It requires a two-week wait for anxious parents, while cells taken with amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling are grown in laboratory culture and analyzed.
