Author Description

With an ever increasing regard for planning reproduction and concern about its outcome, there is a growing need for the expertise of clinical genetics, fetal pathology, anatomy, embryology and teratology to provide accurate answers to the why? and how? of human maldevelopment, asked by every parent and professional. The amount of knowledge in prenatal diagnosis has grown with such rapidity in the last decade, that the subject has developed into a specialty. Prenatal diagnosis with the option of termination of pregnancy provides important reassurance for couples at high risk of serious genetic disorders. The role obstetrical genetics plays in decreasing the number of tragedies in the life of a family is obvious, not to mention its social benefits. While it is true that we have made much greater progress in understanding phylogeny than ontogeny, recent insights into cellular adhesion molecules, peptide regulatory growth factors, homeoboxes and the role of retinoic acid and its receptors in brain and limb differentiation give great hope of further advances in the understanding of ontogeny.