An Israel-based startup is using Artificial Intelligence(AI) to detect genetic disorders in human embryos, via a simple blood test, the media reported.
IdentifAI Genetics can read the embryo’s entire DNA and provide in-depth analysis to detect genetic disorders, Jerusalem Post reported.
“In the pregnant mother there are tiny bits of DNA that come from the embryo, from the placenta,” the Post quoted Prof Noam Shomron, the chief scientific officer and co-founder of IdentifAI as saying to The Media Line.
“If we look at a developing embryo, we can see tiny pieces of the placenta or embryonic DNA and if we could segregate it well enough and separate it, then we’ll be able to read the entire DNA of the embryo,” added Shomron, who also heads the Functional Genomic Team at Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Medicine.
Moreover, the blood test can be done during the first trimester, unlike amniocentesis. In amniocentesis, a small amount of amniotic fluid is taken from the amniotic sac of a developing fetus, between 15 to 20 weeks of pregnancy.
“You do it very early in the development of the embryo, in week 10 (of the pregnancy),” said Shomron
“It’s comprehensive: it reads the DNA from beginning to end.”
IdentifAI relies on a new AI-based software tool known as Hoobari that was first developed by Tel Aviv University, the report said.
In addition, the technology might have important applications with regard to early cancer detection.
Shomron and researchers from Tel Aviv University also recently used the technology to help study the electronic medical records of roughly 8,000 patients with blood infections at Ichilov Hospital at the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv.
In the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers were able to determine with 82 percent accuracy which patients were at greater risk of serious illness as a result of blood infections.
