Abu Dhabi: In addition to using testing to tackle known diseases, it is now also possible to undergo screening for unidentified hereditary diseases, or conditions that are caused by the interaction of two or more genes.
The testing screens nearly 25,000 genes that are known to be responsible for more than 10,000 diseases.
“This type of Next Generation Sequencing looks at an individual’s exomes, the coding region of a gene. Through it, we can detect the mutations responsible for 85 per cent of diseases,” said Dr Ali Hellani, laboratory director at Viafet, a full-range genetics laboratory in the UAE.
Finding the genes for an unknown condition in an individual costs about Dh15,000, while a couple can undergo the same screening for Dh12,000. On the other hand, finding the genes responsible for a known condition will set an individual back by about Dh7,000.
In the future, the doctor says we will be able to undergo specific gene therapy to get cured from a variety of genetic conditions.
“There is currently a lot of research going on to make such treatment available. The idea is that normal genes can be inserted into cells in place of defective or missing ones to correct the mutation,” he explained.
