When the Dor Yeshorim organisation was set up in New York and Israel in 1983, Tay-Sachs disease was rife in the Jewish community. Rabbi Joseph Ekstein, its founder, lost four children to the condition. The mutated gene that causes the disorder, which usually kills children before the age of 8, is ten times more common among Ashkenazi Jews (of European descent) than in most other ethnic groups. Jewish marriage customs made it highly likely that two carriers would start a family together, with a one in four risk that every child would be affected.

All that has changed. Of ten babies born with the condition in North America in 2003, none was Jewish, and only one child with Tay-Sachs was born in Israel that year. The reason was Dor Yeshorim’s genetic screening initiative. Jewish people are now routinely tested for Tay-Sachs status, and the community’s matchmakers do not pair carriers together. When two carriers do marry, they are offered embryo screening.

The new genetic test developed by Counsyl, a Californian start-up company, is now attempting to do for more than a hundred other genetic conditions what Dor Yeshorim did for Tay-Sachs. By informing prospective parents about the recessive mutations they carry, it should substantially reduce their risk of having children with an inherited disease.

“What we’re doing is simply a scaled-up version of the Jewish community’s successful effort to eradicate Tay-Sachs disease through universal screening,” said Balaji Srinivasan, Counsyl’s co-founder and chief technology officer.

For a NY Times article about Counsyl, link here.