The Made-to-Order Savior

Posted by Phineas Upham

It’s been more than 10 years since the article “The Made-to-Order Savior,” was published in The New York Times Magazine, and the story is still very moving. It’s about two children with Fanconi anemia and their parents who go to great lengths to help them survive the disease.

According to article, the only way to save a child with Fanconi anemia is a bone-marrow transplant. But not just any transplant. It must be from a sibling donor with the perfect match. According to the article many parents have conceived with a second child with the hope that they would be a match. However, the two families in the article take a different route. For the first time ever, the parents use invitro fertilization along with another technology to select the right embryos in order to product a baby with the right marrow. The article goes into both journeys, revealing one family who achieves a perfect fit and another who gets the transplant from a stranger without the ideal genetic fit.

While the author agrees that the story about these two children is of “groundbreaking science,” she adds, “It is also the story of last-ditch gambles on unproven theories, of laboratory technique cobbled from instinct and desperation, of a determined researcher who sacrificed his job and more trying to help and of a frantic drive through a hurricane to deliver cells on time.”

Read the entire article: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/01/magazine/01FANCONI.html