A BiomedX team was recently featured on the TODAY show discussing their technology to help answer address questions around pregnancy loss. Miscarriages happen far too often, and patients are left with little information why. Current genetic tests are slow and quite expensive, leaving parents frustrated and without answers. Dr. Zev Williams and his team are using advances in rapid genetic testing to create faster and cheaper methods of testing fetal tissue for aneulploidy.
The new proposed method will take only four hours and will cost less than $200. “The driving force is much more the ability to help and give answers,” says Dr. Williams. The test is meant to use DNA extracted from fetal tissue to reveal if any chromosomal abnormalities exist, and help provide some information to patients regarding issues related to the pregnancy loss.
Dr. Williams and his team recently did a trial with tissue samples from more than 50 women and are submitting the analyzed data to the New York State Health Department for approval. He has a patent on the method of preparing and testing samples and eventually plans to work with a commercial partner to offer it to doctors across the country, but he will start with a small number of patients at Columbia University Fertility Center. Eventually, he hopes to further lower the cost.
