China has 1st biochip test-tube baby

Zhengzhou (CNS) -- A biochip test-tube baby girl weighing three kilograms was born at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University on Monday, as China's first child to benefit from the technology.

A biochip test-tube baby is different from test-tube babies in medical practice. Gene chips, or SNP microarrays, enable researchers to screen all 23 pairs of DNA efficiently and detect genetic mutations timely. The method has only a 2 percent misdiagnosis rate compared to standard test-tube technologies which still involves a risk of 6 to 11 percent.

The infant girl, confirmed in good health after thorough check-ups, is an angel come to earth for a couple from Xinyang, central China's Henan Province. Childless due to infertility for the first five years of their marriage, the couple placed their hopes on medical assistance in June of 2011 and discovered the husband suffers from a rare chromosome abnormality that makes the chance of conceiving a normal embryo only one in eighteen.

The hospital came up with the hi-tech alternative that significantly improved the chances of the wife bearing a healthy baby. This is the first successful case in China, and the second in the world, after the U.S.