Model predicts a drug's likelihood of causing birth defects
Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - 16:30
in Health & Medicine
When pregnant women need medications, there is often concern about possible effects on the fetus. Although some drugs are clearly recognized to cause birth defects, and others are generally recognized as safe, surprisingly little is known about most drugs' level of risk. Researchers have created a preclinical model for predicting a drug's teratogenicity (tendency to cause fetal malformations) based on characterizing the genes that it targets.