Developments in prenatal sequencing

Prenatal testing could become safer and more informative in the coming years thanks to technologies developed to survey a fetus’s genome from the mom’s blood.

Illumina, the world’s leading manufacturer DNA sequencing machines, is now moving aggressively into the field of prenatal sequencing. Earlier this month, the company announced that it would purchase startup Verinata, which launched its prenatal chromosome counting system last spring.

The acquisition follows a string of moves by Illumina to increase its presence in prenatal medical diagnostics (see “DNA Sequencing Leader Buys into Prenatal Testing”).Conventional methods for checking a fetus’s genome for abnormalities require invasive procedures, such as using a needle to withdraw some amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus or some cells from the placenta, methods that can sometimes cause a miscarriage.

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