2001 Volume 21 Issue 6 Pages 383-395
Genetic analysis of fetal tissues permits us to investigate the etiology of unidentified fetal diseases that may be caused by various genetic and environment factors. We are constructing a database based on such analysis and deposit abnormal fetal tissues to the DNA bank according to the Ethical Principles of Research on the Human Genome from the Japanese Government and other guidelines. A researcher joined in this project is requested to be reviewed by the Ethic Committee. This database can be accessed by each member of perinatal physicians and genome researchers via Web browser. A physician can put patient information into this database via browser after obtaining informed consent and send the tissue sample to the bank. A researcher can also put the result of gene analysis into the database. To secure the access, the ISDN network with callback is developed. Accumulation of these data will be an important initial step for the analysis of fetal diseases. Currently we have data records of 164 patients and their 626 specimens.
