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For years, mothers wanting to screen for genetic abnormalities in their unborn children have had few options, the most common being an invasive procedure known as amniocentesis, which requires the mother's womb to be tapped with a needle.

That test is very accurate, but also carries with it a small risk of miscarriage. Now, a new, non-invasive genetic screening technique promises to make prenatal testing easier and safer — but it raises a number of important ethical questions.

The new genetic screen is called MaterniT21, and it's a Down syndrome test marketed by a company called Sequenom. Unlike amniocentesis, the MaterniT21 test can be performed with just a small sample of the mother's blood, no womb-jabbing necessary.

While non-invasive screening methods, which can estimate the chance that a woman is carrying a child with Down syndrome, do exist, MaterniT21 is the first to offer the accuracy of a test based on genetic analysis; and as of October 17th, the test is available to physicians upon request in 20 major metropolitan areas across the US.

So why is this a big deal? Well, if reviews like this one (written by Hank Greely, who chairs the steering committee for the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics) are to be believed, MaterniT21 is just the first drop in what could soon swell into a "flood" of fetal gene screening, as similar non-invasive genetic analyses are developed for detecting a variety of other conditions.

"There's every reason to think that in the future you'll be able to extract an enormous amount of information from that sequencing data," says Peter Benn, director of the Diagnostic Human Genetics Laboratories at the University of Connecticut Health Center.

Of course, releasing the floodgates on prenatal genetic screening could have any number of consequences. Some ethicists, for example, predict that as it becomes increasingly routine to check for genetic abnormalities, more parents will have to confront the decision of whether or not to bring "unhealthy" children into the world.

"The idea that couples have choices about whether to continue their pregnancies may become strained," explains Mildred Cho, and ethicist at Stanford University, "because parents may be seen as irresponsible for allowing 'defective' pregnancies to go to term."

On the other hand, genetic screens like MaterniT21 could one day be used to not only detect genetic ailments, but could even serve a diagnostic purpose, representing the first step towards actually correcting genetic abnormalities with gene therapies administered in the womb. Whether or not the practice of fetal gene therapy would be considered eugenics raises even more ethical conundrums.

For now, however, Sequenom is seeking to distance itself from the idea of eugenics by focusing on developing tests for conditions that are already included in prenatal screening regimens.

"We do not want to invent new applications," explains Mathias Ehrich, Sequenom's senior director for R&D diagnostics. "Our focus is on making existing clinical applications safer. I don't think that we are in a position to say that we should determine what hair color the baby has."

Another Proof of Concept Feature - Azureus Rising

Pretty....Pretty BA, not gonna lie.

The Next District 9....Erik Carl Rinsch's "The Gift"

The Next 'District 9' May Have Been Found
By: Erik Davis on April 9, 2010 at 2:25PM Comments (22)

Ever since District 9 hit theaters and surprised everyone with its excellent low-budget effects and well-written (read: smart) script, Hollywood has been on watch for the next round of do-it-yourself sci-fi to make itself known online. Remember, District 9 was born from a short film that director Neill Blomkamp put together himself, and now other up-and-coming directors are taking similar routes by producing their own out-of-this-world shorts in an effort to sell Hollywood on their smart, original, unique ideas.

'The Gift'
And it seems to be working, as a bunch of studios are now in a bidding war over a project from director Erik Carl Rinsch that's based on his short film, The Gift. Rinsch is a commercial director who's heavily involved with Ridley Scott's production company and is also said to be dating his daughter. He was also the chosen director for the new Alien movie but Fox decided to go with Ridley Scott instead because of Rinsch's lack of experience. Not for nothing, but his lack of experience certainly doesn't show in this short film.

The short was put online during the week, and shortly after a number of studios began battling for the rights to a feature based on only a few minutes of what looked like a really cool futuristic robot-centric, Bourne-like action movie.

Not long after that, word came down from Slashfilm that the feature film they were all bidding on was actually already written, designed and a lot further along in development than most of us had thought. The site also shared a few concept pieces that feature big robot creatures in snowy regions (the original short takes place in Russia). The feature film is called Small, and it's said to pick up right after the short ends. Since Ridley Scott has a deal with 20th Century Fox, most feel the feature will end up there.

Check out the short below and let us know if you think this has the potential to become the next District 9. There's definitely a similar vibe in the whole human vs. creature thing, and I also feel like there's some fascinating social commentary underneath it all, too. Watch and you'll see what I mean…