Decoding Your Baby’s DNA: It Can Be Done. But Should It Be?

April 23, 2018

(Los Angeles Times) – Maverick benefited from a groundbreaking $25-million federal effort studying the value of sequencing babies’ entire DNA, known as their genome. Doctors in San Diego have shown that genome sequencing can help very sick infants like Maverick. But the potential to uncover diseases and risks hidden in DNA has sparked a controversial debate: What if all babies had their genomes sequenced? Other researchers in the same federal project, called Newborn Sequencing in Genomic Medicine and Public Health, have been investigating this broader notion, as well as the sticky ethical questions that come with it.