Prospective parents will be able to screen embryos for almost any known genetic disease using a revolutionary “universal test” developed by British scientists, The Times has learnt.

The £1,500 test, which should be available as early as next year, will allow couples at risk of passing on gene defects to conceive healthy children using IVF treatment. Unlike current tests it takes just weeks from start to finish and is suitable for couples at risk of almost any condition.

The “genetic MoT” will transform the range of inherited disorders that can be detected in embryos and the speed and accuracy of such tests. At present only 2 per cent of the 15,000 known genetic conditions can be identified in this way.

It involves creating embryos by IVF and removing a single cell from each when they are two days old. The cells are tested using a technique known as karyomapping before a healthy embryo is implanted.

However, the advance will deepen the ethical debate over the creation of “designer babies” by widening the scope of such testing greatly.

The test, developed at the Bridge Centre in London, can identify multiple genetic variations, so that scientists could screen for combinations that together confer higher risks of diabetes, heart disease or cancer. Such applications would first have to be approved by the regulator.

The test also has implications for genetic privacy. As well as examining for mutations that cause serious disorders such as cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and Huntington’s disease, it could also reveal an embryo’s future susceptibility to a host of other medical conditions. Parents could thus be told about their embryo’s future risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease or breast cancer. That would raise privacy issues by revealing sensitive health information about children who could not give consent.

A further benefit would be to improve the chances of pregnancy for those who are infertile by selecting embryos that stand the best chance of developing normally.

Professor Alan Handyside, who has pioneered the technique, will apply to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority for a licence to use it. It will cost about £1,500, which is comparable to existing screening, but the price is likely to fall as the technology develops. “We are still validating it, but it is going to be a revolution if it works out,” Professor Handyside told The Times. “It makes genetic screening very much more straightforward.”

Technically, it would be possible to use the test to select an embryo with a particular eye colour or to screen for multiple genes known to affect height or weight. However, Alan Thornhill, the scientific director of the Bridge Centre, said: “When you start looking for more than two or three traits, you’ve just got no chance of getting a match. You’d need thousands of embryos, and we don’t have a practical way of making thousands of embryos.”

In addition, such applications would be blocked by the HFEA.

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