When Massachusetts scientists announced last spring that they’d found a way to silence the chromosome that causes trisomy 21, also known as Down syndrome, it rocked the disability community. Hailed as a “cure in a Petri dish,” the research by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School is the first to find that it may be possible to switch off the genetic material responsible for the condition that causes cognitive delays, heart defects and shortened lifespans. NBC News took the study results well beyond the announcement, exploring the thorny questions raised by the possibility of treatment Down syndrome, but also of eliminating the condition entirely. We found that scientists, ethicists, family members and people with Down syndrome themselves were all torn about the promise and the treat of the new breakthrough.
