Patients Get the Present When Genetics & IVF Institute Celebrates 25th

This could be great news for some HD families: Patients who have a completed PGD procedure at GIVF before December 31, 2009 may save up to $1,250. Patients interested in learning more about the PGD program, the discount or other information should

contact GIVF at 703-698-7355 or visit

GIVF's website, http://www.givf.com.

Patients Get the Present When Genetics & IVF Institute Celebrates 25th

Anniversaryhttp://www.emediawire.com/releases/2009/8/prweb2767844.htm

Genetics & IVF Institute (GIVF), an infertility clinic in the greater Washington, DC area that serves patients from across the country and the world, is celebrating its 25th Anniversary by giving patients a 25% discount on Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) procedures completed between August 1 and December 31, 2009 at GIVF. (Medical eligibility criteria apply.) PGD normally costs $5,000, but with the discount, patients can save up to $1250.00
Fairfax, VA (PRWEB) August 20, 2009

Genetics & IVF Institute (GIVF), the first free standing infertility clinic in the greater Washington, DC area, is celebrating its 25th Anniversary by giving patients a 25% discount on Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) procedures completed between August 1 and December 31, 2009 at GIVF.*

Used in conjunction with an in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle, PGD allows scientists to examine one or more cells from an early-stage embryo to determine whether specific genetic mutations are present. Healthy embryos can be identified and transferred to the prospective mother to attempt to achieve pregnancy. PGD also can be used to identify an embryo's gender. Patients may use PGD for avoidance of gender-related diseases by selecting for the gender not affected by the disease. Other patients may elect to use PGD for family balancing.

Thanks to a new testing program, Genetics & IVF Institute offers preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for most inherited genetic conditions, including myotonic dystrophy, various muscular dystrophies, neurofibromatosis (NF), Cystic Fibrosis, Beta Thalassemia, Hemophilia A, Retinoblastoma, Myotonic Dystrophy, Duchenne-Becker Dystrophy, Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy and more.

"Having a child can be terrifying for people whose families have been affected by a devastating genetic disease because they fear passing the disease along. Now, with GIVF's new testing program, we will be able to test for almost any genetic disease and help those people to have babies free of those feared diseases," says Gary Harton, director of GIVF's PGD lab. "The benefit of testing will extend to future generations, too, because those children will not carry the gene for the disease and pass it along to their children."

GIVF's PGD laboratory also offers PGD for structural chromosome rearrangements and X-linked diseases through the use of a PGD technology called fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH).

Normally, PGD at GIVF costs $5,000. Thanks to the anniversary discount, patients who have a completed PGD procedure at GIVF before December 31, 2009 may save up to $1,250. Patients interested in learning more about the PGD program, the discount or other information should contact

GIVF at 703-698-7355 or visit

GIVF's website, http://www.givf.com.

About Genetics & IVF InstituteFounded in 1984, Genetics & IVF Institute (GIVF) diagnoses and treats patients who need expert medical help to overcome infertility and/or genetic diseases. GIVF has created more than 20,000 pregnancies world wide and developed or perfected many of the treatments and techniques used today to treat infertility.
GIVF operates one of the world's largest

donor egg programs (http://www.givf.com/donor egg) and owns two major donor sperm banks,

Fairfax Cryobank (http://www.fairfaxcryobank.com) and CLI. GIVF's main offices and

laboratories are located in Fairfax, Virginia, with additional offices in Ashburn, Virginia and Bethesda, Maryland. GIVF also owns medical or laboratory facilities in Texas, Minnesota, California, and China, where it launched the first high tech infertility treatment center. For more information, please visit

http://www.givf.com.

Launched in 1992, with the first clinical PGD cycles performed in 1993, the GIVF PGD lab (http://www.pgdlab.com)

around the world, has performed more than 2000 PGD cycles. The GIVF PGD lab was the first in the world to perform PGD Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) and achieve a clinical pregnancy and the first lab in the world to perform PGD and achieve a pregnancy for an autosomal dominant disease, Marfan syndrome. These firsts were soon followed by GIVF's initiation of a non-disclosing Huntington's disease PGD program which remains one of the only programs to offer this type of testing in the world.
*(Medical eligibility criteria apply.)